


at my fingertips, that summer day

by glueskin



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates, Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi | Spirited Away
Genre: "What kind?" Yes, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Eye Injuries, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Japanese Mythology & Folklore, M/M, Panic Attacks, Rhea Is A Freak But What Else Is New, Tension, Unedited & Unbeta'd I Am So Tired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:16:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 23,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22984654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glueskin/pseuds/glueskin
Summary: en route to spend a summer weekend at leo's beach house, odin takes a 'shortcut'.it is, as most things tend to be, all odin's fault.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), Yuris Leclair | Yuri Leclerc/Zero | Niles, Zero | Niles & Leon | Leo & Odin
Comments: 7
Kudos: 21





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i have 0 reasonable explanations for this ship. i was minding my own business thinking about yuri when suddenly i was like "damn he and niles have basically the same backstory and trauma except wildly different methods of coping. they should interact" and now im insane. im actually planning another fic for them which will be like...fe3h canon compliant....but thats all ill say lol
> 
> this fic is ems fault i was like "dude i want to write yuriniles that isnt my [redacted] fic because its gonna be really long and slowburn" and they were like "uhhh do a spirited away au". i thought it would be like. 5k words. maybe 10k. ive written like, 16k words. the second chapter is almost finished. god help me!!!
> 
> anyway ummm important to note: none of niles' childhood abuse is explicitly referenced in this chapter (some of it is more blatant in the next), but there are implications of sexual abuse as well if you...like. know what youre looking for. please be cautious.
> 
> theres a scene with rhea where the way she looks at him and touches him casually makes him physically sick because it reminds him of someone else, who is more directly referred to in the next chapter, but she herself isnt that brand of freak and its just a reflexive association on niles' part
> 
> he does experience the beginnings of a panic attack at one point but hes ok guys. sorry its like 2am and ive been working on this for 3 days and my brain feels like mashed potatoes so like. just take it
> 
> shoutout to em and also sully for tolerating my insanity ily guys

“We’re lost,” Niles says.  
  
“We’re not lost,” Odin lies. From the passenger seat, Leo sighs, dragging the map off of his face.  
  
“We’re lost,” Leo also says. Odin, behind the wheel, seems to wilt.  
  
“Maybe we’re lost,” he mumbles.  
  
Leo and Niles look at him. Then they look forward, at the somewhat fogged image of the dilapidated tunnel in front of them.  
  
“Okay,” Odin gives in. “We’re lost! My sincerest apologies! I truly thought that turn was a shortcut!”  
  
“This is why I have the map,” Leo says. He doesn’t sound angry, though, just tired. Niles feels tired as well. “At any rate, we should use this opportunity to stretch our legs before we continue. Niles, do we have any food left back there?”  
  
Niles knows without checking.  
  
“Yeah, we have leftover fries from the burger place earlier and more sandwiches in the cooler.”  
  
“Perfect. We can have a late lunch.”  
  
At least Leo is being optimistic about all of this. Niles obligingly unbuckles his seatbelt while Odin shuts down the car. He pops open the cooler, handing Leo a tomato juice box and one of the sandwiches with his name before passing Odin his weird tea and his own sandwich.  
  
He gets his own, makes sure the cooler is shut, and follows suit when both of them leave the car. His legs ache from being seated so long so perhaps their detour is good for something—and the breeze here on the slope Odin had driven up is oddly nice and cool in spite of the humidity.  
  
“Shall we take a walk?” Leo asks, nodding towards the tunnel. “According to my map there used to be some kind of park through there—it might be interesting to see.”  
  
“That’s an odd location for a park,” Niles says.  
  
“Let’s check it out,” Odin says, words muffled from the mouthful of his sandwich he had just bitten into. There’s mayonnaise on his cheek. “Maybe we can take some photos of the abandoned buildings. Isn’t it fascinating to see the way nature reclaims the land once people leave?”  
  
“I _guess_ ,” Niles grouses, mostly reluctant because he’d rather be somewhere air conditioned. But Odin and Leo both like that sort of thing so he follows when they go, stepping around an oddly placed stone shrine as they enter the tunnel.  
  
After what feels like an eternity of walking, the only sound being that of their footsteps and the whistling of the wind, they make it to the other side. Niles can admit the scenery is lovely—fit for a postcard even, with the overgrown grass and the clear river.  
  
He doesn’t pay much attention to Odin and Leo’s conversation as he follows, focused on his sandwich and thinking about the least rude way to get Odin to let Niles drive the rest of the way to Leo’s family beach house.  
  
He still isn’t sure why Leo invited him, since he’s relatively sure Xander is going to be there and Xander fucking hates him, but Niles isn’t going to turn down a weekend of free food and drinks and a clear view of the sky away from the city.  
  
Across the river they climb a steep, grassy hill; Leo is flushed from exertion by the time they’ve reached the top, pushing back his sweaty fringe with a grimace. Niles, who is apparently the only sensible person here, hands him the bottle of water he had brought and gets a mumbled thanks in return.  
  
“What a view,” Odin says, so Niles looks, and—  
  
Alright. It _is_ quite a view, he can agree; Odin stuffs the plastic wrapping of his sandwich into his pockets, tucking his tea under his arm so he can use both hands to take a picture with his phone.  
  
When Leo had said _park_ , Niles had assumed a regular community park. Not a _theme_ park, which is as thoroughly abandoned as one would expect, given the poor location. The rows of game booths and towering rides have all been left to the elements, wood rotting and metals rusting, vines and moss growth consuming most of the exterior of the buildings.  
  
“This would make a good post-apocalypse set,” Niles muses, biting into his sandwich again.  
  
“Quite right, my friend! Shall we get a closer look?” Odin turns to them both pleadingly and though Leo groans about how he’ll have to climb up again, he gives in. And so Niles follows as well, pulling out his own phone to check his texts and maybe complain to Corrin about the detour, only to sigh with disappointment when he sees no signal.  
  
Niles stuffs his phone back into his pocket, eats the last of his sandwich, and stuffs the plastic wrapping into his free pocket.  
  
“I’ll walk ahead a bit,” he tells them when they’re both taking photos of the rusted, moss-covered ferris wheel.  
  
“Sure. Just yell if you need us,” Leo says, giving him a fleeting smile before going back to the pictures.  
  
“Or if you see anything cool,” Odin adds.  
  
So Niles wanders off, past the ferris wheel and the tiny, house-shaped game booths. He drinks from the bottled water Leo had handed back to him, pushing his hair out of his face since nobody else is around. It’s a relief to bare his skin; his sweaty hair had been irritating the skin over his bad eye for some time, and though he knows Leo and Odin don’t necessarily _mind_ , they also never know where to look when his face is showing.  
  
He tugs his hair tie off his wrist and uses it to pull back the length of his hair, offering some relief to the back of his neck. After a few minutes of aimless wandering, the voices of his friends growing quieter in the distance, Niles sees…lights.  
  
Odd, he thinks, for this place is surely long abandoned—he rubs at his good eye, blinking behind him, and the abandoned park no longer looks abandoned.  
  
No, the buildings look new, if old-fashioned; each game booth a street stall, full of food or trinkets, smoke wafting in the air and bringing with it a myriad of scents. It’s a sight that belongs in the city, not _here_.  
  
He turns back to the lights he had seen in the other direction, only to stagger backwards, barely catching himself—for where before had been distant grassy fields and a treeline is instead a bridge across a wide river leading to a towering bathhouse, the likes of which he’s only seen in films and in photographs.  
  
“What the fuck,” Niles mutters to himself. He should go find Odin and Leo, but something compels him to step onto the bridge. He looks not at the magnificent bathhouse but down the length of the river, which drops into a lake—when had the sky grown so dark? It should still be noon but the sun is sinking low, burning the water orange-red.  
  
It’s a beautiful sight. If not for the fact he’s wondering if someone had put hallucinogens in his water, he might even be able to enjoy it, but—  
  
“You,” someone says, shocked and furious. Niles turns to the voice—someone stands on the other side of the bridge. A man, he thinks, his age or so. His lilac hair looks as if it may be set aflame at any moment as the sun sets between them.  
  
The man steps forward. Stomps, more like it, expression twisting with worry and anger. Something about him stirs an odd ache behind Niles’ eye sockets, making his brow furrow.  
  
“You shouldn’t be here. You can’t be here—”  
  
“I don’t even know where _here_ is,” Niles says. “This place was abandoned five minutes ago—”  
  
The other man makes a noise of irritation, opening his mouth to speak and stopping. He looks not at Niles but beyond him, gaze then drifting toward the reflection of the sun sinking in the water.  
  
“You have to go,” he says. “Right now. Go to the river you crossed on your way, back through the tunnel—”  
  
“Can you tell me what the fuck is going on first?” Niles interrupts, annoyed, and the stranger narrows his eyes—as purple as his hair, and this close Niles can see the darker shade that colours his eyelids finely.  
  
“ _Leave_ ,” he hisses, seething in his anger. “Before anyone else sees you. Go now, while you still can.”  
  
When Niles tries to speak, to protest, the stranger grabs him by the elbow and turns him around with a shocking display of force.  
  
When Niles turns back, furious, the man is gone. The bridge had been empty moments before but now it’s full of—of people, except not really. Strange shadows walk past him, people-shaped and people-sized, but they look like smoke.  
  
Anger giving way to confusion, he tries to go back the way he came. He calls for Odin and Leo, but can’t find them, not even at the place he’s sure is the abandoned ferris wheel—which is now a butchers shop, but the meat being hung out looks strange and the creature manning the store looks like some kind of hulking, horned beast.  
  
Its gaze follows him as he leaves, making his skin crawl. He tugs his hair back out of his tie as the streets condense with more strange creatures and shadowy figures, letting it fall over his bad eye once more. He sees creatures he has only ever seen in old paintings, historical fantasy shows or anime—a biwa-bokuboku clad in fine silk, a line of kappa rushing through the streets, a pair of kitsune with thin smiles and long tails and surrounded by odd lights.  
  
He searches for Odin and Leo a while longer, but when he can’t find them he tries to go back to the river and the tunnel—something about what that strange man had said was...he had sounded threatening, but also desperate.  
  
Niles finds the river. Or, he thinks it’s the river—it should be, but now it’s more like a lake of its own. He stands on the stairs leading down into the depths, shivering despite the humid warmth, the thought of entering the water making him sick.  
  
A tiered boat, full of lights and bells, chimes as it drifts languidly towards a dock that hadn’t been there earlier. Niles takes one last look at the length of the lake, squinting his good eye to try and see the other side to no avail.  
  
Then he leaves. He heads back towards the bathhouse, hoping to find the man who had wanted him gone—but the bridge is full of strange things and a cat-like creature perched on the railing seems to be dragging its gaze across the crowd of those who cross, as if searching, and the sight makes something shiver down his spine.  
  
He finds somewhere quiet. Behind a line of trees and shrubbery, he kneels, oddly thirsty. He doesn’t touch the last remains of his water, not yet, and when he checks his phone for the time he almost curses.   
  
Something here is fucking with it, because there’s only weird distortion where the date and time should be and of course there’s still no reception. He shuts it off entirely to conserve the remaining 70% of his battery, grateful he had charged it in the car. When he goes to put it away he notices something _else_ odd—he squints at his hand, lifting it, and the distant lights from the nearby streets shine through the brown of his skin.  
  
As he stares it seems like he grows thinner—not physically, but in a different way. His skin, his body, becomes more translucent the longer he looks. He barely registers the way his hands shake under his gaze.  
  
“Found you,” a familiar voice says again, less angry and more frustrated. Niles almost jumps out of his skin, twisting to look—the man could have been there for minutes without Niles noticing because he had come up on his blind side.  
  
“You didn’t leave,” the man says, crouching next to him. Niles wets his mouth, clenching his fingers into fists and dropping them into his lap to hide the way they shake.  
  
“Am I going to become like those…” he doesn’t have a word for whatever those strange, shadowy people are.  
  
“If I hadn’t found you in time, maybe,” is the answer he gets. The stranger sounds tired and resigned now, reaching into the pocket of his strange coat and handing Niles...an onigiri.  
  
“If you don’t eat something from this side, you’ll turn into a shadow,” he explains at Niles’ incredulous expression. “Unless something else finds you. Then you might get eaten or turned into something else.”  
  
“This is fucking insane,” Niles says, struck with the strange desire to laugh, but he can barely see the outline of his own arms anymore; when he reaches out to take the onigiri, his hand phases right through it and the strangers own fist, making both of them grimace.  
  
“Sorry. Here,” the man says, holding it closer, and Niles shoves aside the indignity of eating out of some random guys hand. He half-feared his mouth might not be working either, but he manages. The ordeal is made far less humiliating by the fact the other man makes no comment on it; if he had, Niles might have tried to kill him.  
  
When he finishes all but the grains of rice left clinging to the strangers hand, he leans back and looks down at himself in time to see as his hands seem to finish solidifying. He heaves a great sigh of relief, touching his hands together and then to his own face.  
  
“I guess I owe you,” he says when he drops his hands again, looking to who had helped him. He’s so close to Niles that their shoulders touch, a few stray strands of his hair brushing Niles’ cheek when he meets his gaze.  
  
“No,” he says after a long moment. “Don’t say that. Not to me or anyone else here. Listen,” he pauses, hesitating, and before he can say something else Niles can’t hold it in anymore.  
  
“What’s your name?” He asks. He gets a surprised look at his question, making Niles roll his eyes. “You’ve helped me twice. As much as I never want to think about it again, I literally just ate rice out of your hand. What do I call you?”  
  
For a long moment they just stare at each other. Shockingly, the other man looks away first, dropping his gaze and swallowing. Niles sees the movement in his throat and suddenly the grass is very, very interesting.  
  
“Yuri,” is the response he finally gets. “I’m called Yuri.”  
  
“Great,” Niles says, not wanting to make this moment more strange than it already is. “I’m Niles. So, what the hell is going on?”  
  
“You’ll have to be more specific,” Yuri answers, looking at him again. He sounds almost amused.  
  
“Where are the people I came here with? Where is _here_?”   
  
“Ah,” Yuri sighs. “The other two...I wasn’t able to find them in time. For crimes of trespassing, they’ve been turned into chickens. As for where you are, well. The spirit world. In some places the barrier between this side and the human world grows thin and overlaps—the abandoned park you came from is one such place.”  
  
“I’m sorry,” Niles says, “But I could have fucking sworn you just told me my friends turned into chickens.”  
  
Yuri’s mouth twitches as though he’s trying not to smile.  
  
“Regrettably, I’m not joking. They’re chickens. I fed them some birdseed earlier and put a spell on them so I can keep track of them in the pens.”  
  
Despite his thinly veiled amusement, Yuri does seem serious and after everything else Niles has seen tonight, Odin and Leo being turned into chickens isn’t as far fetched as it would have been that morning. He groans, putting his face in his hands.  
  
“Xander is gonna kill me,” he mutters. “Laslow too. Fuck.”  
  
“There, there,” Yuri says, patting his shoulder. “I’ll try and work on something for them. As for you…” he trails off, tone growing unsure, and Niles looks up.  
  
“Yes, do tell,” he says. “What happens to me now?”  
  
“I need to find you a way back, I guess,” Yuri sighs. “The way you came is blocked off right now. And you can’t roam around, since...well...someone might be in the mood for human flesh. The safest place for you is…” he grimaces, dropping his hand from Niles’ shoulder. Niles hadn’t realized how aware he had been of the touch until its gone, an oddly cold sensation left in its wake and leaving him resisting the urge to rub warmth into the place Yuri’s hand had been.  
  
“Is…?” Niles prods, unsure how to take Yuri’s reluctance.  
  
“The bathhouse,” Yuri says. “The woman who runs it, Lady Rhea—she is incredibly powerful. A witch or some goddess, I don’t know. She must be worshipped, because they say her strength is on par with the likes of the Seven Lucky Gods. This entire district is her ‘territory’.”  
  
“But you don’t want me there,” Niles guesses. Yuri huffs and this time when he smiles it’s a tired and resigned expression.  
  
“No, I don’t. She is...she is kind, on her surface. It’s true that if you can convince her to let you work for her, you’ll be safe—nobody will touch one of her employees.”  
  
On her surface, Yuri says. His uneasiness as he speaks of her is clear. And yet—  
  
“You said it’s the safest option,” Niles says, and Yuri hangs his head with a gusty sigh.  
  
“I sure did. I can’t bring you to her directly—I’ll guide you to the back of the building, then you need to go to the boilers and speak to Alois, the boiler-man. Ask him for work; insist on it. He’ll try to turn you away but it won’t take much pushing for him to give in. You’ll make your way to Rhea in no time after that.”  
  
“Why can’t you bring me to her?” Niles asks. Yuri pushes back some of his own hair and gives him a sardonic smile.  
  
“She will suspect I helped you,” he says, “And she wouldn’t be wrong. But I would be...well. It would not be good for me, and I fear I may already be on thin ice with her.”  
  
Ah. And a woman that powerful…  
  
“I understand,” Niles says. “Now, how will you get me to the back of the bathhouse?”  
  
“Right. First…” Yuri, who had been crouching the entire time, stands and holds out his hand for Niles to take—and Niles, who hadn’t realized quite how long he’d been kneeling in the grass, takes Yuri’s hand and can only be grateful for it when his legs ache under his own weight.  
  
Then Yuri tucks his arm under Niles’ own.  
  
“Walk with me. Keep pace, and don’t look at anyone we pass for too long. Don’t meet their eyes and don’t speak. Keep contact with me—if you break away, the spell will waver.”  
  
“Magic seems way more complicated than fiction makes it out to be,” Niles says dryly. Yuri _laughs_ —quietly, but with genuine mirth as he grins up at him.  
  
“It has a lot of rules, yes. Now let’s be off—I’ve been missing from my duties for far too long already.”  
  
“Lead the way,” Niles agrees, and Yuri does.  
  
They exit the obscured, shrub-lined clearing arm in arm. A few people glance at Yuri but their eyes seem to glaze and skim over Niles—some people pause to greet Yuri, who responds with a vague smile and cold eyes.  
  
Nobody notices Niles. He keeps quiet and breathes sparingly, softly, making sure to keep his arm looped with Yuri’s. He thinks of Odin and Leo, who are apparently chickens now, and not how warm Yuri’s arm is against his. He definitely doesn’t think about that.  
  
They reach the bridge Niles had met Yuri on earlier. The cat-like creature from earlier is still there and Yuri mutters, “Try and hold your breath,” before they keep walking.  
  
Niles can’t ask why, so he doesn’t, instead just inhaling deeply one last time and finding himself grateful for his lung capacity as Yuri leads him across the polished wood. He sees someone who looks unnervingly like Nishiki in the crowd but can’t crane his neck to make sure; he tells himself he’s surely imagining it. Nishiki is supposed to be in Hokkaido with Flannel this week.  
  
Niles puts it out of his mind. The other side of the bridge is closer now, and Yuri’s arm has flexed tighter around his own to keep him in place.  
  
“There you are, Yuri!” Someone shouts, and Niles almost jerks out of Yuri’s grip instinctively, inhaling sharply through his nostrils and biting his cheek to keep from breathing. His lungs ache with the effort and a woman appears as Yuri stalls his footsteps.  
  
Like Yuri, she looks like a person, not a shadow or some other creature meant to be seen on paper and in television. Niles hadn’t realized how jarring it is to see someone look normal when everyone else seems to be very blatantly not human. Her dark golden hair is tied back, her skin tanned from working in the sun, her lips turning up in a grin at the sight of Yuri.  
  
“Catherine,” Yuri greets, tone warm yet vague, his eyes distant. “A pleasure to see you. You’re looking as lovely as always.”  
  
Catherine’s laugh is loud and rough and so is the hand that slaps against Yuri’s shoulder.  
  
“Come off it, kid, no need for that shit. Shamir is looking for you—has been for a while, actually.”  
  
“Ah, I shall have to apologize for keeping her waiting. Some business kept me in town for too long. Do you suppose I might be forgiven if I bring some skewered newts from the kitchens?”  
  
“You sure know your way to a woman’s heart,” Catherine laughs again as Niles remains as still as he can, the ache in his lungs progressing to a burning discomfort. “You _know_ she’ll forgive you then. Look, I gotta run a job for Lady Rhea, but I’ll see you around.”  
  
“Of course. May the wind carry you safely to and from your destination, as always,” Yuri says, and Catherine’s amusement settles into a more genuine expression as she pats Yuri’s shoulder one last time.  
  
“No need for your blessings. I’ll be just fine, so don’t keep Shamir waiting too long.”  
  
And then she’s gone and Yuri is walking far quicker than he had before, dragging Niles along with him to the other side of the bridge.  
  
“Breathe,” he hisses under his own breath as soon as they cross and Niles does. The relief has him drooping his shoulders and Yuri seems to relax as well, exhaling deeply beside him.  
  
Yuri only pauses for a moment before guiding him through a latched gate near the extravagant entrance of the establishment, down a worn out path and towards the side of the building, until they find a steep staircase that seems to go on forever, its thin railings rusted and weak.  
  
“The door to the boiler room is down there,” Yuri says, taking his arm out from Niles’ own, and Niles doesn’t dwell on the same cold feeling he had felt when Yuri took his hand off his shoulder.  
  
“So, sweet talk my way into a job. Right. Nothing I haven’t done before,” Niles says, though it _has_ been a while. “Anything else I should keep in mind?”  
  
“Be wary of Catherine. Don’t let yourself owe anyone anything,” Yuri tells him, and he had said something like that earlier as well. “And...this will be hard, but don’t forget yourself. Remember your name.”  
  
“I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t forget my own name,” Niles says dryly. Yuri doesn’t look like he’s joking, though.  
  
“Everyone here does eventually,” he tells him. “So hold onto it, Niles. Don’t forget who you are, where you came from, or where you need to go.”  
  
Yuri holds his gaze. That odd ache is behind Niles’ eyes again. He feels like he should be remembering something, but he can’t.  
  
“Alright,” he relents. “I’ll take your word for it. You should go, though. Someone is waiting for you.”  
  
Yuri makes a face, index finger curling into a stray lock of his hair.  
  
“Unfortunately so. Careful on the stairs—nobody uses this entrance so it’s kind of worn out. I’ll find you again,” he says, dropping his hand to clap it against Niles’ elbow. “See you, friend.”  
  
“Right. See you,” Niles repeats. He pushes down the _thanks again_ , just in case that counts as an invitation for debt.  
  
Yuri’s smile is a fleeting thing and in the dark it seems bright; he’s gone in moments, vanishing to wherever he needs to be, and Niles looks down the long length of stairs with a grimace.  
  
“Remember how to play nice, Niles,” he mutters to himself, and spends the long walk down remembering a time before he could get away with being, well, himself.

* * *

Alois is, indeed, easy. Niles barely has to wax poetic about being lost in this strange world and in dire need of safety and work to live off of before he’s misty eyed and sniffling as he tugs on strange ropes and sends odd wooden tokens up into the air. A soft, bleeding heart in spite of his staggering stature—Niles wonders if he’s an oni of some sort.  
  
“I can’t give you work myself, but,” Alois pats his eyes with the corner of his sleeve, “Lady Rhea in all of her grace will surely give you a contract. I’m afraid I can’t leave my station, but Hapi can take you.”  
  
“Who?” Niles asks, confused, as Alois grinds herbs together in a bowl too small for his massive hands.  
  
“Hapi. She comes down to bring me my meals—I can’t spare the time to go up, you see, when I’m the only one who can handle the bath mixtures. She should be coming down shortly.”  
  
So Niles waits, watching Alois work. He feels like a child beside a man so large, dwarfed as he is by his size; he barely comes up to the man’s waist. Little black puffs of sentient coal dust—or so they look—scurry between the holes in the walls and the massive furnace, throwing coal in as needed.  
  
After some time, a grinding sound makes itself known—not the sound of Alois grinding herbs, but metal grinding on metal, and Niles looks towards the inconspicuous door past Alois just as it’s shoved open.  
  
“Dinner is served,” says a girl who looks as bored as she sounds, her hair fire-red and falling over her dark, gloomy face. She’s holding a tray with what looks like some kind of fish in one hand and a bag of star-shaped candy things in the other; she sees Niles, then doesn’t spare him another glance as she hands off the tray to Alois.  
  
“Hapi, you’re just in time—thank you for always taking the time to come down here,” Alois says. Hapi just hums, kneeling on the wooden surface of the floor as she tosses the candy onto the concrete—the coal dust creatures scurry about, lifting them up in their tiny arms and squeaking. It’s...kind of cute.  
  
At Hapi’s non-answer, Alois coughs, wringing his hands. Niles waits.  
  
“I was wondering,” Alois says, and Hapi sucks in a breath like she might sigh before stopping.  
  
“Yeah, yeah. You found some stray, I can see that. I’ll bring him up for you... _if_ you give me your dessert,” she says, and Alois heaves a sigh of relief.  
  
“That’s all? Of course! Help yourself,” Alois says, holding out his tray to her. Hapi dumps the rest of the candy onto the ground, sending the coal dust into a frenzy as they frantically gather as many as they can.  
  
The tray is incredibly small in Alois’ hands but the mochi Hapi plucks off of it fits perfectly into her own.  
  
“Come on, then,” she says, barely sparing Niles a glance as she bites into her treat and steps toward the door she’d come in from. Niles grumbles under his breath but follows regardless, toeing out of his shoes and leaving them behind on the concrete floor.  
  
As soon as the door slides shut, Hapi looks up at him through the curtain of her red fringe.  
  
“So you’re the human Yuribird helped,” she says, and his next breath stalls in his throat. She smiles.  
  
“Don’t worry. I owe him too, and even if I didn’t I wouldn’t say anything. He warned me I’d see you when I saw him in the kitchens.”  
  
“He could have warned _me_ I’d see _you_ ,” Niles grouses, and Hapi’s smile becomes less tired and more genuine, especially when he asks, “Yuribird?”  
  
“You’ll get it someday,” she says, then jams her finger against the button for the buildings top floor. Up the elevator they go—as it rises, hinges shrieking, Niles briefly touches his hair to make sure it still covers his eye before instead watching as instead of stone walls, the elevator lifts into open air.  
  
The bathhouse is as extravagant as its exterior had implied. He sees all manner of strange creatures submerged in wooden basins of all sizes, long tables piled with food as guests feast, and when Hapi comments “You should see the actual hot springs” he has no doubt they must be magnificent. Moreso, even, than the ones Nishiki and Flannel are visiting in Hokkaido.  
  
Eventually a frog-like creature joined them on the elevator with a cart of towels and oils, gaze skimming past Niles to focus on Hapi; it both looks at her and avoids her gaze, seemingly unnerved by her presence, until it gets off several floors before their destination.  
  
“Well, here you go,” Hapi says dully when they arrive at what is perhaps the most ostentatious hallway Niles has ever seen—and he had been to Leo’s family home several times when they were teenagers and his father still lived to indulge in excess extravagance.  
  
“I’ll be your moral support from, uh, twenty floors down,” Hapi tells him. “Good luck.”  
  
“Thanks,” Niles says darkly, only a little sour about being abandoned to his fate. She waves as the elevator screeches its way back down, and then he looks at the decor.  
  
It’s, well. Not _tacky_ , but the stark white marble flooring and intricately carved and decorated interior is so drastically different from the traditional feeling of the rest of the building that he feels off kilter. Also, it feels like he maybe stepped into a minimalist church.  
  
He grimaces while he can, then smooths his face into neutrality. He checks his reflection in the polished white walls, making sure his hair covers his bad eye. He wishes he had brought one of his bandages—and he _had_ , but he had left it in the car because there was no point in wearing it around Odin and Leo when the humidity was making him sweat and the cloth would chafe against his scars.  
  
Sighing, Niles figures there’s nothing for it. He walks down the long hallway, looking for any doors, and finds only one—grand as it is, with its ornate door knocker carved into the fierce shape of a dragon head, he assumes it to be the room where Lady Rhea will dwell.  
  
He grabs the ring held in the dragon's mouth and knocks thrice. After a long moment he considers knocking again, but then an elegant voice calls for him to _enter_.  
  
The door is heavy when he pulls it open. The room inside is spacious and as white as the hall, the only actual colour being from the heavy wooden desk and piles of paper, behind which is seated a woman.  
  
She looks up when he enters. Her hair is long and a rich green, or perhaps some kind of off-blue—like the sea, the same as her eyes, except her eyes are so bright that she can’t possibly be human.  
  
“I thought I smelled a human,” Rhea says, slow and thoughtful as she stands. Her dress sways oddly over her as she moves, and only when she stands does Niles realize she’s tall—taller than himself, which is an impressive feat.  
  
Her gaze sweeps over him as she steps around her desk.  
  
“What brings you to my establishment?” She asks him and he hopes he doesn’t look as nervous as he feels. Thank you, years of disguising his emotion in childhood.  
  
“I’m looking for work,” he answers honestly, and she blinks down at him slowly.  
  
“You wish for _work_?” She asks, at least not outright dismissing him.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
Just yes, nothing else. He fears saying too much to this woman. Something about her makes him want to speak and yet he remembers how Yuri had spoken of her, the way he had said _she’s kind on the surface_ , how reluctant he had been to bring Niles here. And, of course, the fear of Rhea knowing he had helped Niles—and it had been fear, regardless of how well hidden it had been.  
  
Yuri does not seem the sort of person to fear much. Niles would rather not find out first hand why he fears this woman.  
  
“Hm. It is true my business is always in need of workers, but,” she looks down at him, considering, and he tries not to shiver in disgust at the way her gaze slides across him. She doesn’t look at him in that way but the calculative gleam in her eyes is similar enough that it feels unpleasantly familiar, nausea welling up from his gut to his throat at the thought.  
  
“You are just a human,” she says. “Small. Frail. Weak. Why should I invest in what will not last?”  
  
“If I may be so bold,” Niles begins, loathing the tone of flattery he must take, “Have you ever hired a human before?”  
  
Rhea pauses. She still looks at him in such a way that makes his skin crawl with discomfort, but he forces himself to appear unaffected.  
  
“No,” she finally answers.  
  
“Then there is no precedence for you to base that observation off of,” Niles says. “I assure you, I can and will work as hard as any one of your employees. Be it scrubbing floors, scrubbing baths, or even cooking.”  
  
That he isn’t struck down for his boldness surprises him. He fully expected a raised hand, or some kind of spell, or even to simply just—be killed, right there. He doesn’t expect the strange smile that spreads across her face.  
  
“You are a brave human,” she murmurs, “To so boldly say such a thing to me. Very well.”  
  
She does lift her hand then but not to strike him; a paper wriggles out from the stack on her desk, floating gently towards her hand, a pen following suit. She hands both to Niles.  
  
“A general contract,” she says. “Sign your name and you will be under my employ—and the protection of my domain.”  
  
“Thank you for your generosity,” Niles says, the words tasting foul in his mouth as he smiles as sincerely as he can make himself. He almost says something like _I assure you that you won’t be disappointed_ , but remembers Yuri’s words and their implications about debts and holds back in case promises hold the same weight.  
  
He skims over the contract in his hand. The writing is so archaic he can hardly understand some of the kanji, but he’s relatively certain he understands. A contract for work, without offering a specific timeframe for his services—he almost doesn’t sign for that reason, but Yuri…  
  
He isn’t sure why he trusts Yuri but he does and it isn’t as if he has any other choice now, so he holds the paper against the wall when Rhea fails to offer her desk for use and carefully writes his name.  
  
Before he even hands it to her, the ink of his name is floating off the page into her open and waiting palm. When she closes her fingers over it, something inside of him seizes and his breath catches.  
  
Rhea smiles down at him, warm and kind, looking less like a bathhouse owner and more like a painting of some saint of a bygone era.  
  
“Niles,” she says quietly, almost sweetly. Cotton fills his ears and his mouth. “A fine name. I thank you for giving it to me. From now on, you will be called...Zero. Yes, that shall do fine for one such as you.”  
  
His right eye socket aches.  
  
“Zero,” he repeats, but he’s thinking, _Niles, Niles, Niles._ He thinks of the way Leo calls his name, fond exasperation in his voice when hearing him and Odin squabble; he thinks of the way Odin says it, joyous and loud; how Flannel says it every morning, sleepy and familiar. The way his mother had said it, so very long ago—so long ago that he can no longer remember her voice, her face, only the love that had been present when she said _Niles, my sweet._  
  
And he thinks of Yuri, of the way he had said _hold onto it, Niles._  
  
He doesn’t quite remember leaving her office; she tells him someone will meet him on the 30th floor where the dorms are. He’s too busy trying desperately to hold onto who he is, but by the time the elevator doors are sliding shut behind him, he’s already forgotten that he was ever anyone aside from Zero.

* * *

Several days pass. Nobody wants to work with Zero because he’s human; nobody wants to work with Hapi for reasons he has yet to be made privy to, and so they end up working together. He’s given a uniform and a futon and a dull explanation of his duties.  
  
His sleep, usually so restless, becomes dreamless and easy; every morning he wakes with Hapi kicking him in the side, drooling into her futon pillow; every morning he folds his bedding, gets dressed, and scrubs the floors on his hands and knees beside a number of others before breakfast. It’s an easy enough routine to fall into when as a child he and the others at the orphanage had done the same thing, folding their pants and shirt sleeves up and scrubbing the wooden floors clean every weekend.  
  
He cleans bathtubs, too. He and Hapi work well enough together, quietly scrubbing away dirt and grime and preparing fresh baths for the customers nobody else can tolerate.  
  
On the fourth day, when he and Hapi are eating lunch after providing a particularly fussy tengu with a bath with some special herb that left an acidic aftertaste in Zero’s mouth with each intake of breath, he asks, “Why haven’t I seen Yuri around?”  
  
She blinks at him, slowly chewing her pork bun and reaching for her tea.  
  
“He’s probably on a job,” she says after she swallows her food and washes it down. “For Lady Rhea, I mean. Sometimes he disappears for a few days but he’ll turn up before long.”  
  
And then she goes back to eating and Zero goes on wondering. He feels as if he’s forgotten something important, but no matter how hard he thinks about it he can’t quite recall, so maybe it wasn’t important at all.  
  
That evening a guest arrives after Zero had needed to resort to stealing a handful of bath tags from the stubborn foreman. Many guests arrive throughout the day, of course, but Zero knows this one is different because the ruckus and mutterings reach Hapi and Zero long before they see the customer.  
  
“Filthy,” someone says, wheezing, eyes wet and face blue with disgust, gills fluttering at their throat. “The smell, it's positively disgusting—”  
  
“Huge,” someone else mutters, shivering, “Dripping filth along the hallway I _just_ cleaned!”  
  
Zero can smell it before long. Even far away, the smell begins to clog the air; colleagues and other guests hide away to avoid dealing with this particular customer.  
  
Even Rhea descends from her high office, the edges of her white robes becoming matted with ominous brown filth as she leads the creature to, of course, Hapi and Zero.  
  
The stench, which had been overwhelming enough before, becomes absolutely dizzying when Zero lays eyes on the hulking creature. It seems less like a yokai of any kind and more like sewer contents given sentience, making Hapi look as sick as he feels at his side.  
  
“These two shall be in your service today, valued customer,” Rhea says to the creature, bowing her head to it politely.  
  
“Welcome,” he and Hapi say in unison, bowing, and the creature gurgles as the sludge oozing beneath it spreads and pools under Zero’s own bare feet. It reaches out and when he and Hapi both stare, dumbfounded, Hapi kicks his leg to spur him into action; he holds his hands out and accepts whatever it drops into his palms. He can scarcely tell what it is through the thick goo that drops with it, but as he clenches his fingers into a fist he thinks it must be the strange gold coins they use for money here.  
  
“Your first customer of wealth and import,” Rhea tells him, smiling serenely in spite of the way filth drips from the creature at her side and into the length of her radiant hair. “Do not disappoint them, Zero.”  
  
Then she strides away, still smiling, and Zero wishes he could wring her neck. Instead he shakes the grime off his hands, tucks the payment into his uniform pocket, and bows to the customer in question.  
  
“If you would wait but a moment, honored guest,” he says, feeling sick from the smell and the flattery both. Hapi slaps at the wall to open the hidden chute, shaking with disgust of her own. He pulls one of the bath tokens he’d stolen earlier from another pocket under his uniform coat, making sure it’s one of the fancy herbal ones that is apparently good for thorough cleans, and clips it onto the rope.  
  
When he yanks it, it vanishes upward, and the other cache in the wall drops open, its noose-like rope with it.  
  
Hapi helps push him up the slope of the baths edge, his feet slipping wetly from the slick mud that has accumulated across the floor. He can feel dozens of eyes on him, if not hundreds, as he yanks the rope and a flood of rich water begins to fill the bath.  
  
The bath fills quickly. As soon as it’s full enough, he yanks the rope once more, stopping the flood.  
  
“At your leisure, honored guest,” Hapi says for him, voice thick with effort as she bows to the creature who has waited with stunning patience.  
  
Zero slides off the bath. The creature climbs up and Zero thinks, for a moment, it won’t even fit despite the size of the tub, but no—it fits, water sloshing out of the rim and flooding the rest of the room and mixing with the mud, which pools now at his shins.  
  
“Ah,” he breathes. Hapi glances at him.  
  
“Do you have…” she trails off, and he does.  
  
“Go tell Alois not to stop the water,” he says, and she nods, dragging herself through the mud to leave the room as he goes back toward the chute in the wall. He clips one of the best tokens he’d thrifted onto the rope, yanks it, and drags himself back through the mud that is somehow already close to his knees. He grimaces with the effort and has to climb up the steep edge of the bath on his hands and knees to avoid falling.  
  
He nearly passes out from the smell when it breathes in his face, its fathomless eyes staring into him, its toothless mouth gaping—but he manages not to, kneeling up and grabbing onto the rope and yanking with all his might.  
  
The water comes flooding down. It drowns the creature in it, overflowing from the bath and flooding the rest of the room; it hits Zero as well, and he sucks in a sharp, terrified gasp as he’s sent tumbling from the edge and into the depths.  
  
Zero has never liked being submerged in water; he can’t stand swimming, can hardly stand _bathing_ , and has only ever showered for years. Since he was a child, even. He all but screams as he’s stuck not just beneath the water but in the mud, smacking his fist against the sludge clinging to the interior of the bath as if that will help. His lungs burn. His eye socket aches in his skull, empty and gaping behind his eyelid. Filth and herbs burn at his remaining left eye.  
  
Something touches the back of his neck and he howls, writhing as water fills his burning lungs, feeling nine instead of twenty-four—but all the thing does is grab him not by the neck but by his waist, lifting him as if he’s weightless.  
  
Zero sputters and gasps as it holds him, shoving his head out of the fall of water. Hapi is back, he realizes distantly, staring at him from the entrance with an expression he’s never seen on her usually impassive or bored face. Something like shock or horror, maybe, but he doesn’t get the chance to think about it.  
  
The thing holding him draws him closer.  
  
“What? What do you—” Zero coughs on water, spitting, the water forcing his hair over his good eye. It’s saying something, he realizes, but he can’t understand, and so it draws him closer still and he reaches out blindly until his fingers catch on something.  
  
An elongated... _something_ juts out from the creature’s side. It groans in pain as he tugs on it, and Zero realizes _this_ is why it came here.  
  
“You need to take it out?” He shouts over the water. Zero thinks it nods as it holds him away again, and he sticks his head out from under the flood of water, shaking his hair out of his face.  
  
“Hapi!”  
  
“I’m here!” She shouts, and his gaze finds hers. She’s staring at him, wide eyed, and now he realizes—his whole face is bare.  
  
He can’t feel embarrassed or disgusted with himself now. He doesn’t have the time. Rhea’s voice rings in his ears; _Do not disappoint them, Zero_ , which had clearly meant _Do not disappoint me._  
  
“It has a—something is stuck! In its side!” He calls down, and she looks at the figure obscured by the water.  
  
“Stuck?” She repeats, and before he can yell to affirm, yes, something is stuck, Rhea comes...floating down, from wherever the hell she might have been.  
  
“Use this,” she says, handing Zero a length of rope. As soon as he takes it the creature draws him close once more, until he can clumsily wrap the rope as tightly around the thing sticking out of its side as he can without being able to properly see it.  
  
“Hapi?” He calls behind him, flopping back in the creatures hand to look for her.  
  
“Here!” She calls back, climbing up the wet surface on his blind side. She takes the rope with him, tossing the rest of the length behind _her_ ; this close she doesn’t have to yell when she says, “Lady Rhea says we’ve got an injured god on our hands, but...are you okay?”  
  
“Fine,” he grunts, not wanting to admit otherwise. Not when he can feel so many eyes on him; not when an apparently injured god is holding him in its slimy grip.  
  
“Alright,” Hapi relents. “Everyone’s gonna help out, so…” before she can finish, Rhea’s voice is heard, raised to be heard above the clamor of bodies and rushing water.  
  
“Pull!” She orders, and Zero _pulls_.  
  
He pulls until his arms ache. The god holding him lowers him down onto the edge and he and Hapi are both left standing only thanks to the grip they have on the rope; Zero pulls in time with each of Rhea’s orders, the damp rope chafing against his palms as he pulls, and pulls, and—  
  
“What the hell is that?” Hapi wheezes behind him as something dislodges from the gods body. The god groans in discomfort, shaking, and they pull once more, Zero skidding back with the force of it.  
  
It’s...a bicycle, he realizes, as Hapi yelps and slips backwards.  
  
“Keep pulling!” Rhea calls, and Zero grits his teeth and lets go of the rope in favor of grabbing the bike. He pulls on its handlebars directly as everyone behind him tugs on the rope, and moments later it’s Zero’s turn to be sent stumbling backwards, falling into the veritable lake of water and sludge as he frees far more than just a _bike_ from the sludge clinging to the god.  
  
He sees an old toaster oven, broken fishing rods, someone’s shoes, a lamp, half of a rotted-through desk, a laptop—it’s disgusting and that isn’t even all of it, only what he can discern at a glance. He shudders, grabbing for the fishing line still caught in the rapidly-thinning god, and yanks as hard as he can in spite of the way it cuts into his palm.  
  
The lure at the end emerges from the god with a _pop_. A hiss of foul air comes rushing out and Zero wavers on his feet, only to be caught—not by Hapi behind him, but by the water itself.  
  
He thrashes, struggling for air, only to realize he can _breathe_. In the water. Hysterical laughter bubbles in his throat.  
  
“Thank you,” someone whispers and he squints through the steam of the bath. It sounds like a woman’s voice.  
  
He’s placed gently onto the rim of the bath. He stares, dazed, down at the murky water below—it’s somehow cleansed of filth, unclear only because of the minerals and herbs.  
  
“Is...is that _gold_?” Someone mutters behind him in the ensuring silence.  
  
“Control yourselves before our guest,” Rhea snaps, sounding as close to upset as Zero has heard her.  
  
Someone laughs, a bright and elegant noise like that of a windchime. Rhea calls for someone to swing open the main doors. Something rises through the steam, scales glittering.  
  
A dragon, he realizes, swaying where he stands. The massive dragon smiles at him, her great maw seeming to curl with it—and then she’s gone, laughing loudly as her massive serpentine body flies out of the building, wind kicking up all around them strongly enough for Zero to finally be forced off the tub.  
  
He goes stumbling back and Hapi catches him, deceptively strong in spite of her thin body.  
  
“Zero,” Hapi wheezes, steadying him. “You—are you okay?”  
  
He shakes his head, unable to speak, lifting his hand to pull his hair back into place only to realize his fingers are closed into a tight fist. When he opens them he sees he’s holding something he definitely hadn’t been before—some kind of muddy brown ball. Not only that but the chafing burns from the rope and the thin cut from the fishing line are both gone; he closes his fingers back over it and uses his other hand to cover his face while Hapi stares up at him with concern.  
  
“Fine,” he finally says, and Hapi is nice enough to call him out on the lie.  
  
Someone touches his right shoulder, on his blind side, and fear crawls up his throat as he goes still under the touch and Hapi backs away from him.  
  
“You did well,” Rhea says, her voice soft and sweet as she lifts her hand—her palm presses gently into his damp cheek and he can only stare up at her, feeling sick.  
  
“You see, everyone? A human outshone you all today with his initiative. You should all learn from Zero’s example.”  
  
In this moment Zero hates her like he has hated no one since his childhood, or at least since the first time he had seen Leo with a bruised cheek in their school days; he feels a hundred thousand eyes on him, the eyes of people who have already hated him for his humanity and who will hate him even more, now.  
  
He says nothing because he knows there are no words to make this situation better for himself, only worse. When Rhea’s hand drags away the relief is overwhelming; when she turns from him, walking past the mountain of garbage littered across the floors Zero had spent the morning polishing, he allows his shoulders to go slack with the slightest bit of relaxation.  
  
“Sake is on the house tonight, as are second servings of dinner and breakfast in the morning. Clean up can wait until then.”  
  
The cheers are deafening. Zero watches Rhea leave, something inside of him shaking, and he barely registers when Hapi leads him away—through the crowd, down the halls, to the stairwell as opposed to the elevator.  
  
As soon as they’re alone he empties what feels like a month's worth of meals. Hapi says nothing. She simply keeps her hand on his back, a touch far more welcome than Rhea’s had been.

* * *

Hours later, long after Hapi had forced him to eat and drink in a surprising show of aggression on her part, Zero sits in the exterior hall outside the room he sleeps in; he can hear Hapi snoring away behind the thin paper door separating them. She had dozed after indulging in a few cups of sake, her gaze understanding when Zero refused to partake.  
  
For three days and nights it rained relentlessly. Now the area outside looks like a lake, or perhaps an ocean, but he doesn’t look down—no, he looks up.  
  
This is one thing that has stayed the same from his world. The stars are the same and it’s a comfort to see them and map the constellations as he would back home.  
  
“Hey there, friend.”  
  
Zero curses, startling and smacking one of his knees on the wooden railing between his legs. Yuri seems unapologetic when he looks up, stifling a smile and a laugh behind his hand, shoulders shaking.  
  
“Very funny,” Zero glowers. “Where the fuck did you come from?”  
  
“Oh, you know,” Yuri says vaguely, grinning as he drops himself to sit at Zero’s side—his left, so Zero can see him clearly. His hair seems paler than before in the glowing light of the moon, falling over his face finely. “Around.”  
  
“Very informative. Where _were_ you?” Zero asks and he’s stunned by how badly he wants to know, even though Yuri owes him nothing.  
  
If Yuri minds, he doesn’t show it.  
  
“Working. As soon as I met with Shamir I got whisked away for a few days—sorry about that,” he says, rubbing the nape of his neck. He sounds genuinely apologetic, too. “I was going to bring you to see those friends of yours days ago.”  
  
“It’s fine,” Zero says, his irritation vanishing. “Sorry, you already did a lot for me. Hapi mentioned you were probably working.”  
  
“I’ll be gone tomorrow too,” Yuri says, shifting at his side. Their knees press together and this close, even in the dark, Zero can see how tired Yuri looks. “So I don’t have much time. What say you to a midnight tryst?”  
  
His tone goes low and suggestive on the question.  
  
“As if I could resist a man like you,” Zero answers and relishes the surprised delight on Yuri’s face.  
  
Yuri stands, offering his hand to Zero as he did several days ago and just as he had done then, Zero accepts it.  
  
“Follow me,” he says, tucking his arm into Zero’s once more and Zero is relatively certain there’s no reason for it this time. He doesn’t comment, however, and follows Yuri quietly down the hall.  
  
Yuri leads him inside once more, down hallways and stairs, and they somehow avoid being seen by anyone at all. There’s a tucked away elevator shaft Zero had been unaware of, which they take to the boiler room; it’s smaller than the main one, making him somewhat uncomfortable, but Yuri’s warmth pressed against his side is a comfort.  
  
Alois is there, deep asleep and snoring with each inhale.  
  
“I hope he didn’t burn my shoes,” Zero mutters, the first thing he’s let himself voice since they left the 30th floor.  
  
“Nonsense. I bet the little ones took them,” Yuri whispers back with certainty, rapping his knuckles once against the wall above the little arches where the coal dust lives.  
  
They scurry into sight at the sound, carrying Zero’s shoes—no easy feat for them, he’s sure, given the fact they’re more like boots.  
  
“See?” Yuri grins at him and Zero can’t help but smile back, if only slightly, as Yuri releases him so he can sit down to pull his shoes on.  
  
The coal dusts scuttle around his feet, watching with wide eyes as he puts them on. His socks have been somewhere along the way—in the dorms, probably, mixed in with the uniforms and everyone else’s clothes. Oh well. They probably won’t be going far.  
  
“Shall we go?” Zero offers his arm to Yuri again and Yuri grins as he tucks himself against his side once more.  
  
“We shall.”  
  
Yuri leads him out the way Zero had come in several days ago, up the creaky stairwell and across the bridge. He points out certain things along the way—shops, plants, the train in the distance that Hapi had gazed at with longing earlier in the night.  
  
Eventually Yuri brings him to a gated garden, the latch of which comes undone easily under a wave of Yuri’s hand. He pulls away from Zero only to bow and say, “After you, my dear,” leaving Zero stifling his laughter in his throat.  
  
“You certainly know how to charm a man,” he says when he’s sure he can keep a straight face, stepping into the garden. Yuri follows, hooking their arms together once more.  
  
“You have yet to discover the half of it,” Yuri responds as his arm curls through the crook of Zero’s elbow.  
  
They walk leisurely through the garden. It’s well maintained—Zero knows enough about this sort of thing thanks to being around Mozu and, to a lesser extent, Nishiki. Though his friends’ gardens are more full of vegetables and herbs than carefully arranged hydrangeas, it’s similar enough.  
  
When Zero comments on how lovely the gardens are Yuri seems oddly pleased. Before too long they’re climbing down the worn path of a hill, towards a farm area Zero had not been able to see from the dorms.  
  
“Your friends are in the pens,” Yuri tells him, letting go of him as he guides him towards a chicken pen. There are cattle and pigs in the building proper; he can see their shadowy silhouettes and hear them shuffling about, but he focuses on the birds.  
  
“You weren’t kidding,” he says, more to himself than Yuri as the other man crouches with him beside the pen. Zero squints into the tiny, house-like building through the mesh windows. “I mean, obviously you weren’t, but. Shit.”  
  
“That’s them,” Yuri says, pointing toward the end. Leo-chicken and Odin-chicken are perched on neighboring roosts, sleeping away without a care in the world.  
  
“They look kinda cute like this,” Zero admits, then scrubs a hand over his face. He suddenly feels exhausted. “Fuck. They’re gonna get eaten eventually, aren’t they?”  
  
“I’m...working on it,” Yuri says, not looking at him. “But, uh. It is possible.”  
  
Zero grimaces. He looks not at Yuri but at his friends, so small and feathery.  
  
He stands. He can’t stay here; can’t look at them, not when he doesn’t know for sure if he’ll ever see them as themselves again. It feels a lifetime ago they had been driving to Leo’s beach house, arguing over whose turn it was to be in charge of music.  
  
 _Zero_ , he hears them say, smiling with their voices, but—no, that’s not right, he thinks as he hears Yuri follow him. But what else would they have called him?  
  
“ _Niles_ ,” Yuri says, grabbing his right arm, and Zero startles so badly he almost elbows him when he turns. Yuri’s brow is furrowed with worry.  
  
“I called your name several times,” he says slowly, letting go of Zero’s arm. “Sorry. I should have approached from your other side,” he adds, looking guilty, and Zero exhales sharply. He doesn’t question how Yuri knows about his eye; surely the whole damn bathhouse does after earlier—then he remembers when they first met on the bridge, and how Zero's hair had been pushed back, his face uncovered, and Zero wonders why Yuri hadn't said a thing about it.  
  
“It’s fine,” he mumbles, then clears his throat. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you. What did you call me a second ago?”  
  
Yuri stares up at him. Zero stares back.  
  
“Oh shit,” Yuri laughs, sounding nervous. “Oh, man. You already forgot?”  
  
“Forgot _what_?” Zero asks, annoyed, and Yuri pats down the front of his own jacket before tugging it open and reaching for something inside.  
  
He hands it to Zero. A phone, he realizes— _his_ phone, although the screen is cracked now.  
  
“I found it when I passed back through the clearing I found you in,” Yuri explains. “It’s yours, right? Check.”  
  
Silently, Zero turns the power back on, wondering how he hadn’t noticed it gone. He hadn’t noticed or thought of much these past few days, he realizes; he had only focused on the rhythm of work. He’s able to unlock his phone successfully. His notifications come up and with them—  
  
“Niles,” he says aloud. “Oh, for fucks sake. I forgot my name. You _warned_ me.”  
  
“I should have explained better,” Yuri sighs. “Or told Hapi your name, so she could remind you. She’s safe but you need to keep it secret now—this is how Rhea traps people. For people on this side, names are powerful things. If you willingly write yours down for someone they can make you do anything.”  
  
“So those stories are true,” Niles says, groaning. “Sorry. I can’t believe I almost...I really almost became…”  
  
Yuri’s expression is sympathetic. Niles wonders how much longer it would have taken for him to forget more than just his name—to forget Odin and Leo and his whole self, had Yuri not reminded him.  
  
He looks back to Yuri, who watches him with his brow still somewhat creased.  
  
“Yuri?”  
  
“Hm?”  
  
“Thanks,” he says. It usually hurts him to thank anyone so sincerely, and here he is, saying it for what must be the third time to this man. Yuri’s smile seems oddly bright despite the dark.  
  
“Don’t worry about it. Let me walk you back and we can call it even, alright? It’ll be dawn soon.”  
  
Yuri’s right. They had taken their sweet time on the way here and it had already been incredibly late when Yuri had arrived; it’s only a matter of time before he’ll have to work.  
  
“As if walking with you is any hardship,” Niles says and Yuri laughs.  
  
They speak far less on the way back than they had before, but the quiet is a comfortable sort. Yuri walks with him all the way back to the bridge, where he squeezes Niles’ arm before letting him go.  
  
“The sun is rising. I’ll be late if I don’t leave now,” Yuri says, tone almost wistful as he glances towards the light beginning to gleam across the endless expanse of the lake.  
  
“Such a shame. At least you returned me in a timely manner, as a gentleman should,” Niles says. He’s joking—they’ve been joking this whole time—but he finds, after he says it, it _is_ rather a shame.  
  
“Aw, come on. I’ll be back before you know it this time. The job is local,” Yuri says, eyes curving with his smile. In the new day’s light Niles realizes his mouth is too pink—he’s wearing some kind of gloss.  
  
Before he can remember how to speak, Yuri beats him to it.  
  
“Look, uh—I meant to get back early enough last night to talk to Hapi, but that didn’t work out. Can you let her know Constance is doing well?”  
  
Niles wants to ask who Constance is, but Yuri is shifting on his feet and glancing restlessly at the rising sun, so he doesn’t.  
  
“Sure. Can I ask one thing, though?”  
  
Yuri looks at him, bemused.  
  
“Of course.”  
  
Niles flexes his fingers, nervous for no reason as he rocks back. Maybe it’s a rude question, but—  
  
“Do you remember your name?”  
  
Yuri’s slight smile fades. He looks at Niles for a long moment, then turns towards the glowing sea. For a moment Niles is sure he won’t answer and is ready to try and apologize.  
  
Then he says, “No, I don’t,” and Niles feels—not sorry, but something. His head aches. So do his lungs. It’s worse when Yuri smiles up at him and speaks again.  
  
“It’s strange, though. I can’t remember my name but I remember yours.”  
  
What the hell does anyone say to that? Niles has never been an easily embarrassed man but he can feel his face flushing hotly. Yuri’s smile grows wider still and he laughs, bright and open; the sun is truly rising, now, bright and hot between them as it ascends.  
  
It makes the color of Yuri’s hair glow warmly, like a fresh sprig of lilacs. The thought stirs something odd in the back of his mind.  
  
“I’ll be back soon,” Yuri tells him again, reaching a hand to touch his arm, the laughter still shaking his voice. “We’ll figure something out for you and your friends. Don’t forget your name again, Niles.”  
  
“I won’t,” Niles promises, his own voice sounding oddly far away. Yuri lets him go and Niles has to force himself to walk away from him. Something he wants to say is stuck in his throat, a word he can’t recall trapped under his tongue; so he leaves and only allows himself to look back when he’s unlatching the gate to the path to the boiler room.  
  
Yuri is gone, of course. But something flutters through the sky, too large and dark to be any normal bird Niles has ever seen—and he knows, inexplicably, that he’s watching Yuri fly away from him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> niles' no good very bad week continues

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow!!! we are freaking FINISHED!!! so much for like a 5-10k word fic
> 
> once more i say: niles' abuse is more specifically referenced in this chapter. same stuff i warned about in the first part
> 
> shoutout again to em for giving me these brainworms and sully for dealing with me going bananas

Niles gives his phone to the coal dust so they can keep it hidden with his shoes; he lingers with Alois, who wakes when he enters, to share tea. Niles is no stranger to all nighters, though it is his first one in a while, so he figures he’ll need all the caffeine he can get.  
  
It’s worth the fact he spends the entire interaction pretending not to notice Alois thinks he’d snuck out with his non existent lover. Alois sees him off by slipping a skewered newt into his palm with a conspiratorial wink and a comment about keeping his energy up; Niles, mortified, only keeps himself from chucking it because he knows Hapi will kill him if he doesn’t at least save it for her.  
  
“I forgive you for sneaking out with Yuri,” she says when he hands it to her on their way to their assigned bath. He kicks the back of her leg and she kicks his, laughing, more emotion than he’s seen from her before—aside from the look on her face the day before, when she realized why he hides his eye.  
  
“It’s not like that, fuck off. He told me to tell you someone named Constance is doing well.”  
  
She stops laughing at that. She looks like she wants to sigh instead, biting into the newt to keep herself from doing so. He shudders at the crunchy sound of it in her mouth.  
  
“Thanks,” she says after, with that same far away look she'd had as the train sped past them last night.  
  
They work diligently together. It’s an easy day since it’s mostly cleaning up after the havoc from the day before. In spite of Rhea’s public glowing praise, they are of course both avoided, and Niles ignores any and all muttered comments about his eye.  
  
“He’s human, right? Aren’t they always born with two?”  
  
“No, did you see how ugly it was? Someone probably took it…” etcetera. The usual.  
  
Hapi doesn’t ask. She doesn’t even look at him differently or try to get a glimpse as they work, the way Odin had when they were younger and he first realized.  
  
That night is when things go wrong. Maybe it’s because Niles has remembered his name—maybe Rhea’s magic, used to take someone’s name and turn them into someone else, had forced a measure of peace into his nights so that he would be fit for work each day.  
  
He doesn’t know. But for the first time in days his sleep isn’t blessedly dreamless; instead he dreams a familiar memory. The night he had said _no_ , terror and courage choking him in equal measure, when the director had been so angry as he tried to run that he had—well.  
  
Hapi is the one to wake him, shaking him out of his stupor. Niles almost hits her when he wakes, so afraid of her touch on his shoulder, but she pulls herself back in time as he scrambles away from her.  
  
Everyone else is gone. Hapi says nothing as Niles catches his breath, wild eyed and guilty, cold sweat drying on his skin.  
  
With how fiercely his eye aches, the director may as well have struck him with the fireplace poker yesterday.  
  
“Sorry,” Hapi eventually speaks, sliding her gaze away from him. “I thought about leaving you, but...I know I, at least, would prefer to be woken from a dream like that.”  
  
“It’s—” _fine_ , Niles can’t say, throat tight, and so he says nothing for a long while.  
  
“It’s fine,” he can finally say, and he means it. “I almost...hit you. Sorry for that.”  
  
“It’s fine,” Hapi repeats back to him, half-smiling and looking genuinely unbothered. “I know it wasn’t on purpose. Do you wanna get ready for work alone?”  
  
“I would appreciate it,” Niles admits and she leaves him to it.  
  
It takes an embarrassingly long time for him to put himself together. Longer than it would if he were at home; Flannel always hovers at the edge of his room, shoving water and crackers between the gap in his door before shutting it again, and Leo and Odin are always a call away.  
  
Flannel is in Hokkaido. Leo and Odin are in a chicken pen and for the first time since he was a teenager Niles has only himself for comfort to recover from this.  
  
He crawls to the exterior hallway, grateful that it’s empty. He sucks in a breath of fresh air, pressing his forehead to the polished wooden floor. He hangs his body out of his apartment window much the same way even if Flannel always shrieks when he comes in, worrying he’ll fall.  
  
Niles spends probably ten minutes just laying on the floor breathing. He’s still new here; he can only get away with so much, and so he should force himself up. But the cool floor feels so nice, as does the breeze and the hot sun, already so high in the sky.  
  
He may have stayed there all day were it not for the odd flapping he hears. He frowns, pushing himself up and looking towards the sky, and—  
  
That bird, huge and dark in the sky, is back again. _Yuri_ , he thinks with strange relief and then concern. Little white creatures are flocking against him, attacking him, and Yuri’s movements are panicked. At least he’s pretty sure those frenzied wing-flaps and odd twists of his body are a sign of panic; Niles isn’t sure what else they could be.  
  
He forces himself to stand, grabbing onto the edge of the railing to heft himself up.  
  
“Yuri!” Niles hollers, throwing his arm out as if that might help with getting his attention. “Get in here!”  
  
For a moment Niles isn’t sure Yuri had heard him but then he starts flying in Niles’ direction, so he prepares himself by grabbing the edge of the sliding door. As soon as Yuri rushes past him in a gust of wind, Niles slams the door shut so hard the entire frame shakes—what must be hundreds of those white creatures slam against the surface, and only then does he realize they’re papers cut into the shape of dragons.  
  
“I’ve seen it all,” he mutters to himself, pushing the paper dragons out of his mind as he turns to where Yuri lay, writhing on the floor of his dorm room.  
  
He’s. Well, obviously he had looked huge in the air but he’s even bigger this close; as Niles drops to his knees at his side, he realizes Yuri is easily the size of a car. A huge, feathered car.  
  
“Yuri? Are you alright?” He asks, touching the plumage of his throat.  
  
A pained, scratchy noise escapes Yuri’s beaked mouth. His eyes snap open and that’s when Niles knows with certainty he wasn’t mistaken—those are Yuri’s eyes, vivid and purple but wild and afraid.  
  
 _Like mine_ , Niles thinks. He had surely looked the same not even half an hour ago.  
  
“Hey, it’s okay, you’re okay now—” Niles tries to say, but Yuri shakes his head, shrieking in a panic. All of his feathers seem to puff out at once, sharp talons scrabbling against the tatami as he moves. Something dark and red stains the mats and Niles grabs for him in a panic, but he’s too late; Yuri is launching himself back out of the doors, destroying them on his way out.  
  
Niles curses loudly, running after him, leaning out over the edge of the railing to look for him. The wooden surface is slick with warm blood that he tries not to think about—Yuri hasn’t gotten far yet and is smashing into part of the wall on his way up when Niles sees him.  
  
“He’s going to Rhea. Of fucking course,” he hisses, looking down at himself. He’s not even dressed, unless the thin pants and undershirt he was given to use counts. No time for it, either; he wipes his bloodied hands off on his own pants and only gives himself time to throw on the outer jacket of his uniform, stuffing the dragons mud-ball gift into one of the pockets, before racing out into the halls.  
  
The elevators are full and he can’t risk someone asking why he’s going to the top floor. He gets off several floors below instead, sliding open the doors to a guests room with aggression.  
  
“Excuse me,” he says, not the least bit apologetic toward the indignant spirit he storms past. He climbs out onto their balcony, hoping he’s gotten the right room, and—yes. He had cleaned here a few days ago and noticed the piping leading towards the emergency ladder hung a yard or so away.  
  
It probably won’t hold him. Niles heaves himself over the edge anyway, shoves half his weight to test it, and when the pipe doesn’t immediately crumble under him he flattens himself against the wall and begins an agonizingly slow crab-walk.  
  
Niles is going to give Yuri so much shit for this. When he’s only a few feet away from the emergency ladder, the pipe gives out under his weight and he has to launch himself across the distance, grabbing the bottom rung and grimacing at the clatter of falling pipes and he strain in his own arms as he heaves himself up.  
  
 _I should go to the gym again_ , is not a thought he should be having now, but if he were in high school—hell, college—and still doing archery, his arms wouldn’t be aching so much after so little activity.  
  
He manages, though. He climbs up as high as the ladder will take him and then has to shimmy onto the top ledge of a window to try and open another. He bangs at it, tempted to just punch his fist right through the glass, when it swings open and smacks him in the face.  
  
“ _Fuck_ ,” Niles wheezes, clutching his aching nose. He gives himself only two seconds to feel sorry for himself before he’s grabbing the windowsill with both hands and heaving himself up.  
  
He had anticipated someone being in the room but he hadn’t expected said person to hold their index finger to their mouth in a universal shushing gesture when Niles came in.  
  
They look like Rhea, is the first thing Niles notices. But then he realizes that is only partially true; they have her hair and eyes, though the color is perhaps paler, but the resemblance ends there.  
  
The person gestures for Niles to come closer, nodding their head toward the door they stand by. Niles does so warily and as he does so he hears Rhea’s voice, his insides going cold.  
  
“Get rid of him—he is useless to me like this. He lasted an oddly long time for one of his kind, though...at least I was able to study him.”  
  
Her voice, usually saccharine in its faux-kindness, now sounds cold and distant. Niles knows she must be talking about Yuri; he doesn’t realize he’s moving until a hand clamps down on his elbow.  
  
“Let me go,” he hisses under his breath, but the ethereally beautiful stranger does not. Their fingers grip into his elbow with enough strength to bruise, shaking their head.  
  
“Wait,” they whisper, voice low and smooth.  
  
Niles stops if only out of surprise.  
  
“Excuse me, Catherine. It seems I must tend to such important matters myself, or at least with a more personal touch. Once you finish with him, find Shamir and send her to me. This mess needs to be cleaned up before Seteth realizes what I intended to do.”  
  
“Yes, my lady,” someone else says, and he recognizes the voice—the name, too.  
  
 _Be wary of Catherine_ , Yuri had told him, and now he knows why.  
  
“Get under the bed,” the person holding onto Niles says, releasing their grip on him, and he doesn’t have time to ask why because the footsteps that begin approaching answer for him.  
  
Niles gets under the damn bed. He barely has time to remind himself about his breathing techniques when the door is opening.  
  
He can only see Rhea’s feet. Even that much fills him with anger.  
  
“How are you feeling, my dear?” Rhea asks, and her tone is the most genuine he’s ever heard it—concerned, loving.  
  
“Fine,” the person who had helped him says, tone vague and sleepy. “Are you…leaving again?”  
  
They sound almost disappointed. Rhea makes a sad, pathetic noise, stepping close to them.  
  
“I am so sorry, my sweet. Yuri failed to get what I need for you and so I must arrange alternatives. I promise to return soon. Please, rest in the meantime.”  
  
“I will.”  
  
Rhea steps so close Niles thinks she must be embracing them. After a few moments she leaves again, and a few moments after that, the other person kneels by the bed.  
  
“Safe now,” they say, so Niles shimmies out with a grimace.  
  
“Is she your…” _mother_ , he can’t bring himself to ask as he’s helped up. They seem to understand, shaking their head.  
  
“No. Maybe. She wants me to be someone else,” they say, sighing. “I can’t explain now. Yuri needs us.”  
  
Niles won’t argue that. He follows them out of the room into Rhea’s office; he hadn’t even seen any doors that could lead to an adjacent room before, but that thought is snuffed out when he sees Catherine nudging Yuri with her foot toward the fireplace, which is now empty of fire and clearly leading nowhere good.  
  
“Catherine,” Niles’ companion says, clamping their hand on his elbow once more. The woman startles, turning to them with wide eyes.  
  
“Byleth! You, you shouldn’t be up! Are you—” her voice breaks off, gaze fixing on Niles.  
  
“You,” she hisses, reaching for the sword at her hip. Byleth steps between them, shaking their head.  
  
“Stop, Catherine. This has gone on long enough,” Byleth says. They sound so _tired_. Catherine’s hand shakes, but she still grips the hilt of her sword.  
  
“I cannot disobey my ladies orders,” she says raggedly. “And she only wants what is best for you.”  
  
“No,” Byleth says sadly, “She doesn’t.” And then, before anyone else can say a thing, something papery and white flutters off of Niles’ back.  
  
Oh.  
  
 _Fuck_ , he thinks.  
  
One of the paper dragons had clung to him, following him, and were it not for the iron grip on his elbow Niles would be running to Yuri.  
  
“How disappointing you have become,” someone says. The _paper_ ; it flutters to the floor, the shape of a man flickering into place. Green hair. Green eyes.  
  
“S, Seteth,” Catherine breathes, fear in her voice.  
  
“Take a break, Catherine,” ‘Seteth’ says, pointing to her. She barely has the chance to open her mouth before suddenly, another Byleth stands in her place. She tries to speak but no words come out; Seteth waves his hand and she’s sent flying into the room Niles and Byleth had just emerged from.  
  
“That will do for now,” he says, then turns to Yuri. “As for _him_ —”  
  
“It was you,” Niles says. “You did this to him.”  
  
He barely realizes he’s spoken. Byleth finally releases him and Niles steps right through the translucent man so he can drop to his knees by Yuri.  
  
Blood is pooling across the white marble flooring. Yuri makes a pitiful noise when Niles touches his wing, which is twisted and bent oddly.  
  
“I may have gotten carried away,” Seteth says, not sounding very apologetic. “I needed to get back what he took.”  
  
“I’m sorry,” Byleth sighs. “I hadn’t realized what Rhea was doing until he was already gone, so I couldn’t warn you and I still haven’t found Yuri’s contract. What should we do?”  
  
“About that, I—”  
  
Niles, who has been only half-listening as he tries to wake Yuri, is almost thrown back when Yuri finally does stir with a shrieking caw.  
  
“Oh dear,” is the last thing Seteth says, for Yuri’s writhing had damaged the paper medium he used to appear.  
  
“Yuri!” Byleth calls, panicked, and Niles grabs onto Yuri’s feathered neck just as he slips off the fireplace’s edge.  
  
He muffles his own panicked scream into Yuri’s throat as they fall.  
  
“If I die, I’m fucking haunting on you,” he yells into Yuri’s feathers. He doesn’t see where they’re falling, his face tucked into Yuri’s feathers to keep from having dust and god knows what else blown into his one good eye. But he knows Yuri begins moving in a purposeful direction, so maybe they won’t actually die.  
  
For some reason it all feels strangely familiar.  
  
Niles doesn’t get to wonder why because they’re both spiralling through a thankfully inactive fan and crashing into the familiar form of Alois, who catches Niles with a shout of surprise as Yuri’s massive body smashes into the walls, knocking open drawers of herbs and smearing blood in his wake.  
  
“Shit, let me _go,_ ” Niles howls, elbowing Alois and clambering off him as Alois sputters.  
  
“Is that _Yuri?_ Zero, what’s going on?”  
  
“Too fucking much,” Niles says, because that’s the only thing he can really say about it. He approaches Yuri, who is writhing in pain and snapping his beak the closer he gets.  
  
“Oh, shut up,” Niles snaps down at him. “Don’t go acting like this when _I’m_ the one who should be pissed off at you for showing up half-dead. What the fuck, Yuri.”  
  
Yuri doesn’t answer with words, just with another shrieking caw, and Alois hovers awkwardly behind Niles.  
  
“Oh, dear me. He’s bleeding quite a lot. I smell a curse on him, too…”  
  
 _No shit_ , Niles doesn’t say, wincing when Yuri jabs his arm with his beak when he reaches out to him.  
  
“What happened to him, Zero?” Alois asks, and Niles clenches his jaw.  
  
“He took something from someone named Seteth,” he says, figuring it’s probably fine to say this much. “I don’t know much else.”  
  
“ _Seteth?_ ” Alois repeats, disbelief in his tone. “Lady Rhea’s _brother_? Oh, no. No wonder he’s in a state.”  
  
“Her brother? That explains…” not much, aside from how alike they look. “Anyway, is there anything you can do?”  
  
“Goodness, no,” Alois says apologetically. “Manuela might be able to do something if she were here, but she’s been gone for—oh, has it already been months? Whatever is causing him this agony is inside him. The most I can do is numb pain, I’m afraid.”  
  
“Great. So he’s just going to _die_ ,” Niles says, managing at last to grab Yuri’s neck in both his arms, practically climbing on top of him to keep him in place.  
  
“Of course not,” Alois sounds confused. “You have medicine, don’t you?”  
  
“I have fuck all,” Niles disagrees, then pauses, hoping his weight will keep Yuri still enough to refrain from knocking Niles off when he finds the mud ball in his pocket.  
  
“This thing?” He holds it up for Alois, who nods once.  
  
“Yes, that! It’s quite powerful, you know. I could smell it on you.”  
  
“The dragon gave it to me,” Niles admits. “I didn’t know what it was.”  
  
Yuri fusses and begins writhing under him when he tries to hold it to Yuri’s beak, so he rolls his eye, popping the thing into his mouth and spitting out the mud the covers its surface.  
  
“Don’t be such a child. Do you want to fucking die?” Niles asks, leaning down. He uses one hand to force Yuri’s beak open and shoves the other into his mouth, grimacing at the feeling of his beak clamping down painfully against his arm.  
  
“I swear to god,” he mutters into Yuri’s feathered head, “If you don’t swallow this I’ll kill you myself.” Then he releases the medicine into his throat, yanking his arm out, heedless of the way Yuri’s beak scrapes and breaks his skin. Yuri screams, agonized and grating, but Niles doesn’t let himself feel sorry as he uses both freed hands to hold his beak shut.  
  
Yuri does an admirable job of trying to flap both his injured wings and force Niles off him, but he remains where he is, arms around his throat and hands tightly holding his beak shut until Yuri’s attempts to force him off instead become actual bodily convulsions.  
  
“He needs to puke,” Alois says in a panic. “He needs to get the curse out—let go now!”  
  
Niles lets go. He’s immediately thrown off, back hitting the wooden floors and knocking the breath out of him, and he shakes the hair out of his vision as he sits up. He immediately wishes he’d stayed down a moment longer because the sight of Yuri vomiting brown sludge isn’t a very appealing one.  
  
Thank god Niles hadn’t eaten earlier. He might have been sick just at the sight. As it is he wheezes in a breath and crawls over to Yuri’s hulking, shaking form as the last of the sick leaves him, patting his feathered back.  
  
“Better, right?” He asks. Yuri, of course, doesn’t answer and just trembles under his touch.  
  
“There! The curse!” Alois exclaims, and Niles looks over at the puddle of muddy puke. It’s... _all_ mud, he realizes, which is kind of nasty. But then he sees what Alois is pointing to—a crystal vial full of dark green-red liquid and, atop it, a strange insect that seems to stir out of sleep. As soon as it sees Niles approaching it tries to skitter away, but Niles slams the heel of his foot down and shudders at the crunch and splatter of ooze on the bare skin of his heel.  
  
“Gross, gross, oh my god,” he mutters, kicking out his foot. Black goo drips from his skin and the bug leaves behind nothing but ashes. Alois gestures for him to come back, so he scoops up the strange vial and does so; Alois slaps him hard in the back with a mutter. Something shivers across Niles’ skin, but he feels less disgusting after.  
  
“I’ll prepare something for Yuri. Sit, catch your breath,” Alois tells him, and Niles drops onto the wooden surface at Yuri’s side.  
  
“Will he be okay?”  
  
Alois’ lack of answer feels like an answer on its own. Niles sighs, touching his hand to Yuri’s feathered neck; this time Yuri leans into his touch and, after a moment, begins to shudder bodily.  
  
Feathers give way to flesh. His body becomes smaller, his wings twisting into the shape of arms, and his usually impeccable hair splayed out in a tangled mess. He lays so still against the wood that Niles leans forward in a panic, turning him onto his back and touching his fingers to his throat.  
  
“Thank god,” he mutters, squeezing his eye shut and exhaling.  
  
“Niles,” a familiar voice mumbles and he snaps his eye open again, staring down at Yuri.  
  
He’s unconscious. But he mumbles his name again, “Niles,” sounding sorry and pained.  
  
“You’re such a fucking idiot,” Niles says, leaning down to press his face into Yuri’s chest. “So stupid. Fuck.”  
  
Alois kindly says nothing about this display. The coal dusts, who have all been hiding from the ruckus, creep out of their hiding places in the wall.  
  
Then the elevator screeches in the walls and grinds to a halt. Niles, fearing the worst—fearing Rhea—all but climbs over top of Yuri in a pathetic attempt to hide him, but when the doors slide open he sees only Hapi and Byleth.  
  
“Oh shit,” is the first thing out of Hapi’s mouth. She sucks in a sharp breath and then grimaces, unable to sigh it out.  
  
“I see you got more than just the curse out of him,” Byleth says blithely as they enter the room. They help a shocked looking Alois pour the tea the man had been brewing, then kneels down at Niles’ side, heedless of the blood staining their white robes.  
  
“Medicinal tea,” Byleth explains. It has an astringent scent that leaves an equally strong taste in the back of Niles’ throat just from breathing it in. When Niles hesitates to climb off Yuri, Hapi kneels near him as well.  
  
“Byleth and Yuri have been working together for a while,” she says. “They're just trying to help.”  
  
Of course they are. Niles guiltily shuffles off but still holds Yuri half in his lap.  
  
“I have no idea what’s going on,” he says as he props Yuri up carefully so Byleth can hold the saucer of tea to his mouth. Yuri mutters incoherently but doesn’t choke as the tea goes down, some of it spilling down his chin. Niles wipes it away idly.  
  
“Rhea brought me here some time ago,” Byleth says in that distant voice of theirs. “Yuri was already here...he didn’t want to be, but he had already forgotten his name and how to go home. He’s been here since he was a child. He can’t disobey Rhea directly because she has his name but he’s been helping me.”  
  
“I did think it was strange,” Alois says, scratching his beard. “He showed up one day out of nowhere, oh, was it twenty years ago? No, not quite that long. Almost. Over a decade for sure. He was so small...but he grew quickly, unlike most tengu. He shouldn’t even be able to fly yet.”  
  
Something is carefully slotting into place in Niles’ mind, but he still isn’t sure what it is. He clenches his jaw around the discomfort of his aching eye. Before he can think more about it, the conversation continues.  
  
“And you, Byleth—you said Rhea brought you here, but whatever for? You’re Sitri’s child, yes? You look like her, but you smell like Jeralt.”  
  
“Do I?” Byleth asks, seeming pleased. “I am their child, that’s right. Rhea wants me to be someone else, though.”  
  
“Let me help you out,” Hapi murmurs by Niles’ side. He hadn’t been paying attention to his bloodied mess of an arm, but she tugs it so he reluctantly lets go of Yuri so she can pull it toward her. “Coco is better at this sort of thing, but…”  
  
She trails off, dragging her hand through the blood and torn skin, making him shiver not with pain but with an odd warmth that suffuses his skin. As he watches in fascination, skin knitting back together, he hears Alois exhale in shock over Byleth’s words.  
  
“Can you translate their conversation for me?” Niles asks Hapi as she examines her work; only a pale, but large and noticable, scar is left of his injury and as her mouth quirks upward he supposes it's a good thing he usually wears long sleeves.  
  
“Rhea’s crazy,” she says. “Her mom was a goddess or something, not a regular ayakashi or anything, and when she faded into obscurity because people stopped remembering her, she died. Rhea couldn’t take it. She’s been trying to reincarnate her by giving her own blood and memories to spirits and sometimes even humans—Byleth’s mom was one of the spirits she had taken in for that reason.”  
  
“I’m starting to regret asking,” Niles mutters, disgusted at the implications being painted. Hapi nods.  
  
“Yeah, it’s super messed up. Byleth’s mom disappeared like, forever ago, and then one day Rhea found out about Byleth existing and yanked them out of the human world and has been keeping them in that room since.”  
  
“I sneak out sometimes,” Byleth says serenely. “Yuri helps. Rhea won’t be an issue much longer, but I hadn’t expected her to try and steal some of Flayn’s blood.”  
  
“No wonder Seteth went crazy,” Hapi says.  
  
“Flayn is Seteth’s child,” Alois supplies for Niles’ benefit. “I have never met the young lady, but Seteth used to come here sometimes—one day he stopped visiting altogether.”  
  
“He disagreed with Rhea’s decisions,” Byleth says. “And tired of trying to persuade her to stop. Now, speaking of him…” they trail off, turning to Niles.  
  
“I have a plan. If you help me with it, I can get you and your friends out of here and Yuri won’t be punished by Rhea for his failure.”  
  
“Lay it on me, then,” Niles says immediately. Byleth’s smile is barely noticeable but it’s undeniably there.  
  
“We need to travel to Seteth’s,” they say. “You and I can lie to Rhea—your contract is all but useless because you remember your name and I’ve never been under one. For taking Flayn’s blood, Seteth took me, or so we will say. You’ll deliver Flayn’s blood back safely to him in ‘exchange’ for me. Rhea will have no choice but to owe you a grave debt.”  
  
“And how will we get there?” Niles asks. For some reason Byleth turns to Hapi.  
  
“Oh, for fucks sake,” Hapi grumbles. She pats herself down, checking her pockets and eventually pulling some folded papers from under her shirt.  
  
“I have train tickets. It’s a one way trip so you’ll need to figure out your own way back,” she hands them not to Byleth but to Niles, who tries not to think about where she had pulled them from.  
  
“Are you sure?” Niles asks, remembering the way she had stared after the train that one night. She had put on the same expression when he spoke to her of Constance.  
  
“It’s fine. Yuri can get me more,” she says with a shrug. “I’m only here to help him, anyway. When Rhea is taken care of…” she looks like she wants to sigh again, but as usual refuses to. “Just take them.”  
  
She stuffs the papers into his hands. Niles folds them and tucks them carefully into his coat.  
  
“Ah, that reminds me, Zero—where did I leave those…” Alois mutters, standing and reaching for one of the high cupboards in the wall. Hapi and Niles share a glance; in his arms, Yuri mumbles and shifts but doesn’t wake.  
  
With a triumphant ‘ah _-ha!_ ’Alois finds what he was looking for, kneeling back down. In his massive hands Niles’ clothes look more like old scraps; it takes a moment for him to realize they’re _his._  
  
“How?” He asks, baffled as he takes the carefully folded clothes. They’re in the same condition they had been when one of the older workers had taken them in exchange for his uniform, if smelling slightly of soot.  
  
“Yuri asked me to hold onto them. You can’t exactly go out like _that_ ,” Alois explains, and Niles remembers he’s still in his sleeping clothes.  
  
“Fair point,” Niles sighs, shrugging out of his jacket. Hapi takes Yuri into her lap and everyone politely looks away when Niles peels off his shirt.  
  
He hadn’t realized how much he missed his normal clothes until he’s buttoning up his shirt and fondly staring down at the cartoonish bows and arrows on it—a gift Nishiki had given him months ago. He’d even missed his jeans; he’d never thought he’d take _denim_ for granted.  
  
For some reason the plastic wrap from his sandwich is still in his pocket. It makes him want to laugh, but he refrains; the coal dust skitter out of their hiding places in groups, carrying with them his boots and his phone, which he takes gratefully.  
  
“If I turn around, am I gonna see your bare ass?” Hapi asks. Alois makes a strangled noise and Byleth coughs.  
  
“You already have,” Niles says dryly, because there’s only so much privacy when you share a room with over a dozen other people. Alois looks scandalized when Niles turns around but Hapi just laughs.  
  
“Yeah, and once was enough.”  
  
“You look nice,” Byleth says when they and Hapi turn to look at him. Hapi has shifted Yuri so he’s laying on Alois’ massive pillow instead. At Byleth’s words Niles fights the urge to flush, tugging at his shirt cuffs.  
  
“Those do suit you way better than the uniform,” Hapi agrees, handing him back his coat. He slips it back on, making sure the train tickets are still secure inside, checking for the crystal vial of blood as well.  
  
“I should hope so. The uniform doesn’t suit _anyone_ ,” Niles says, but he knows he’s wrong as soon as he says it, for the off-grey color and purple accents had stuck in his mind as suiting Yuri quite finely.  
  
Yuri is unconscious. Niles puts the thought firmly out of his mind; Hapi stares at him knowingly but politely doesn’t call him out.  
  
“Anyway, the train?” Niles asks. Byleth stands slowly, smoothing out the already impossibly smooth fabric of their robe.  
  
“Can you swim?” They ask, and Niles winces.  
  
“Theoretically,” he says. He can swim, sure, but he never knows when his mind is going to turn on him and make him think he’s being held under.  
  
“There’s the boat,” Hapi says. “It should fit both of you.”  
  
“The boat, then,” Byleth agrees, craning their neck to look up at Alois. “Sorry. I got you involved.”  
  
“Aw, come on, kid. Yuri crashing down here got me involved,” Alois says. “Besides, you’re Jeralt and Sitri’s kid. I owe them my life and that takes precedence over my contract with Rhea.”  
  
“I hope so,” Byleth sighs. “Thank you for this, Alois.”  
  
While Alois is assuring Byleth it truly is no trouble and he’d do the same thing again, Hapi is mindful to approach him from his left, touching his arm and drawing his attention.  
  
“What’s up?” He asks quietly and she shifts, seemingly nervous, which is odd for her.  
  
“This might be my last chance to ask. Sorry, it’s kind of insensitive, but...can I see your injury? I want to check something.”  
  
Anyone else and Niles’ first and final response would be _no_. He doesn’t even like showing his doctor when he needs to be refitted for his implant; but Hapi seems to have a reason and so he only feels slightly sick when he says, “Sure.”  
  
He pushes his hair out of the way. His hand doesn’t shake. He holds it back, waiting, and Hapi stares up with a frown.  
  
Then she lets go of his arm to touch his face and he almost flinches back.  
  
“Sorry,” she mumbles, fingers just barely touching the edge of the scarred flesh along his cheekbone. “But it’s as I thought. This didn’t heal naturally.”  
  
“What the hell do you mean?” Niles asks, furrowing his brow, but suddenly Byleth is stepping toward them again. Hapi steps away as Niles lets his hair fall back into place.  
  
“I didn’t look,” Byleth says immediately. “Um, is everything okay? We should get going before the train comes.”  
  
“It’s fine,” Niles says, giving Hapi a confused look. She shrugs, looking a little uncomfortable.  
  
Byleth stares between them, expression unsure.  
  
“Right,” they say slowly. “So, the boat is outside?”  
  
“Tied to the ladder, yeah. Come on.”  
  
They both follow Hapi. Alois, misty eyed, promises to watch over Yuri for them, wishing them both a safe trip and speedy return; Niles feels awkward in the face of his emotion and is relieved when Hapi closes the steel door.  
  
It’s the way Niles had first come to the bathhouse what feels like a lifetime ago; on the rickety, rusted metal platform, Hapi points downward.  
  
Niles had noticed the ladder hooked into a wall before, but now that he’s looking he can see it leads down toward the edge of the water, where a small wooden boat drifts, tied into place on the bottom rung.  
  
“I will go first,” Byleth offers, climbing over the railing to grab the ladder.  
  
While Byleth is climbing down, Niles glances at Hapi, who is looking pointedly into the distance.  
  
“You going to explain before I go?”  
  
Hapi makes a noise as if she wants to sigh.  
  
“Your injury didn’t heal naturally,” she repeats. “A spell was used. It was roughly done, but…” her voice trails off.  
  
Oh. Right. Niles remembers waking up in the ambulance, and later in the hospital; it had only been a day or so since he fled the orphanage, burned and bleeding, and yet his injury had somehow healed as if months had gone by.  
  
The doctors were confused. Until they realized he was the same boy who had been seen running from the orphanage not a day ago, his injury fresh, they thought for sure it has been months old and were at a loss for why his eye socket hadn’t sunken and collapsed.  
  
Then they were confused for a whole new reason.  
  
Niles hadn’t thought about it in a long, long time. There was no reason to. At the time he was less concerned with his ugly face and more concerned with if he would have to go back; and if he did, whether or not the director would be there.  
  
He touches his fingers to where the scarring begins on his cheek.  
  
“You don’t remember,” Hapi surmises. It isn’t a question.  
  
“I don’t,” Niles agrees. “But I was only nine.” Byleth has reached the boat; Niles climbs over the railing as well, grabbing the ladder and swinging his weight onto it.  
  
“Makes sense, I guess. Anyway...safe travels, Zero. Working with you was fun,” she says, sounding like she means it. Niles smiles when he turns to her.  
  
“My name isn’t Zero,” he tells her, quiet like a secret. “It’s Niles.”  
  
Hapi blinks at him, stunned, and then she grins.  
  
“Niles,” she repeats. “Suits you a whole lot better than _Zero_. Between you and me—and Yuri—Hapi _is_ my name.”  
  
Niles doesn’t ask how she managed to fudge Rhea’s contract. He just grins back at her before he makes his descent.  
  
She watches him go. She waves to him and Byleth one last time when they’re both in the boat, and he waves back; Byleth does as well, though they seem confused.  
  
That might just be their face.  
  
Byleth handles the oars. They do so with ease; together they make their way toward the tracks running through the water, then follow them upstream toward the station.  
  
The quiet between them isn’t as comfortable as the one he would share with Hapi and there’s something Niles has wanted to ask, so he figures he might as well.  
  
“Byleth?”  
  
“Hm?”  
  
“I don’t mean to be rude, but...how should I refer to you?” He hopes Byleth knows what he means; Hapi had used vague language for them and their speech gives no particular indication. Byleth blinks slowly, tilting their head, before something like realization crosses their expression.  
  
“Oh, yes. I was born a man but I don’t feel like one or the other. Whatever is fine,” they say.  
  
“Right, okay,” Niles agrees. Nishiki is kind of like that as well.  
  
The silence stretches between them. The water sloshes against the outside of the boat and Niles stares past Byleth toward the station in the distance, hoping desperately the entire trip won’t feel so awkward.  
  


* * *

  
The train is full of shadow people, the ticketmaster included. He accepts the two tickets Niles hands him, shredding them into his fanny pack before wandering off and leaving the two of them to seat themselves.  
  
Aside from telling Niles they’re going to a place called Rhodos Coast at the sixth stop, Byleth is quiet. They stare out the train windows, gazing off into the distance with that vague look on their face.  
  
Niles can feel the exhaustion creeping up on him. He had slept the night before but it had been restless; he had awoken from his nightmare feeling as if he hadn’t slept at all and before he could collect himself, he’d needed to run after Yuri.  
  
“It’s okay if you rest,” Byleth says after some time has passed. They don’t look at Niles, still staring far away. Niles wonders what they’re looking for. “It’s going to take a few hours, so…”  
  
“I’ll try not to fall asleep,” Niles says, “But if I do, wake me up at our stop.”  
  
“Of course,” Byleth says, finally glancing his way briefly with an odd, distant smile. Then they turn away once more and Niles sighs.  
  
He crosses his arms and slouches in on himself, closing his eye. He loses himself in the sound of the water under the tracks, the metal-on-metal of the wheels in the rails, the sound of people moving. Niles isn’t the type who can sleep anywhere and so he doesn’t _sleep_ , not really; he’s aware of when the doors open and close as they stop and when they travel far enough that the tracks are no longer flooded with water.  
  
But he drifts, one foot lost in memories and the other in waking awareness. He thinks about Hapi saying _your injury was healed with magic_ with such surety; he thinks of the doctors and their confusion, which had soon given way to concern and horror when they realized why he had been injured and why he had fled.  
  
Niles tries to think of before he had awoken in the hospital. When the director had been so overcome in his anger he had taken the poker to Niles’ face; when he had run, half-dressed and bare-foot, through the halls and out into the rainy spring air. The cold had been biting against his burning skin. He had run and run, from the city outskirts to the woods until he couldn’t run anymore; until he fell down the slope of a hill in the dark and landed in the water.  
  
That’s right. There had been a river. He had fallen in; he had been sure he would die and he’d thought, _if it means I don’t go back, let me stay under._  
  
Someone had pulled him out, but who?  
  
“Zero? Zero—Niles?”  
  
A voice and hand both pull him out of the sinkhole of his memories. Niles jerks, half-asleep, when Byleth touches his shoulder.  
  
As soon as Niles’ eye opens, Byleth pulls their hand back.  
  
“Our stop,” they say, politely not commenting on Niles’ probably frenzied expression. At least he feels calmer than in the morning; almost hitting Hapi had been awful enough.  
  
“Sorry,” Niles mutters anyway, straightening his posture and grimacing at the ache in his lower back and neck. Byleth leads him off the train, nodding to the man who had taken their tickets hours ago.  
  
While Niles crawled through his memories, the sun had sunk low and the moon had risen high. Niles takes a moment to glance up at the sky when he steps off the train, the doors sliding shut with a squeak behind him.  
  
“It’s this way, I think,” Byleth says, pointing down the dirt path through a wooded trail.  
  
“You _think_?” Niles repeats and Byleth shrugs.  
  
“I’ve never been here personally,” he admits. Niles wants to groan but the noise catches in his throat when he sees someone walking through the dark path Byleth had motioned toward, visible only thanks to the lamp they carry.  
  
“Ah, nevermind. We’re being picked up,” Byleth says.  
  
“What.”  
  
Byleth says nothing, of course, so Niles waits with them until the figure is close enough to see—it’s a girl, perhaps Elise’s age, with vivid green hair and eyes.  
  
 _Flayn_ , he thinks even before Byleth says, “Hello, Flayn.”  
  
“Hello, Byleth! It’s so nice to finally meet you. And you must be, um, Zero?” Flayn turns to him as well, giving a little curtsy, the lamp in her hand swaying.  
  
“Right,” Niles says, not correcting her. He’s too busy wondering how she even knows.  
  
“Father is expecting you both. This way,” Flayn says, smiling brightly, and she leads them through the dark.  
  
This is familiar, too. With the memories he had just forced himself to drag to the surface Niles can compare this wooded path to the one he had run through so long ago; he catches himself keeping an eye out for any overgrown roots in the path, lest he trip and find himself drowning as he had back then.  
  
Eventually they reach a cabin; a quaint little thing with a trellis of unfamiliar flowers arching over the entryway, a garden of vegetables and a cute little rose lattice. It’s the sort of home one would see on a brochure or postcard.  
  
Flayn opens the front door, the lamp in her hand dousing itself.  
  
“I’ve brought guests, father!” She calls, and as she’s illuminated by the indoor light Niles can see the bandages covering one of her skinny bare arms.  
  
The vial of blood in his pocket seems to burn. He can’t imagine someone like Yuri taking a thing like that by force, even under orders from Rhea.  
  
“Come in, then. Be a dear and prepare some tea for them, would you? And ‘tis good to see you once more, Byleth—and Zero.”  
  
The door swings shut behind them. Seteth is seated at a dining table when they enter, looking much like he had in Rhea’s office, if more solid as opposed to transparent. He seems genuinely pleased to see them; when Flayn wanders past him toward the stove and kettle, he smiles at her with such fondness and love that Niles has to look away.  
  
“It’s good to see you as well,” Byleth says, glancing briefly at Niles, who shakes himself out of his bitter thoughts and approaches not Seteth, but Flayn.  
  
He feels Seteth’s gaze on him as he walks past. When he stops by the stove and Flayn looks up at him with bemusement, he takes the crystal vial out of his coat pocket.  
  
“I came to apologize for Yuri. This is yours, isn’t it?” For some reason when he hands it over, Flayn laughs, joyful and pleased. It makes him miss Elise.  
  
“Oh, I am not mad at him. Father is not either—at least, he better not be. I gave this to Yuri willingly. I knew he was unable to go against Aunt Rhea,” she explains as she accepts the vial, tucking it into her apron. “My father just, well. When he came back and saw he got a bit carried away. Thank you for bringing it back, though.”  
  
“Carried away,” Niles echoes, glancing toward Seteth, who looks somewhat embarrassed.  
  
“Ah, well...yes. I fully intend to apologize to Yuri for my violence. Flayn is the only family aside from Rhea I have left, you see, and so I find myself sometimes _over_ protective of her.”  
  
“Sometimes!” Flayn quotes, sounding indignant yet amused. “Ah, I cannot even go out to play with my friends without Father kicking up a fuss on some days, though it is far better than when we lived in isolation. Now go, stop hovering about me and sit with him and Byleth.”  
  
What can Niles say to that except ‘yes, ma’am’? Nothing. Niles sits himself next to Byleth at the dining table.  
  
“Here, you must be hungry,” Seteth offers, sliding a tray of fish-shaped cookies across the table. Since Byleth eats some with no problem, Niles tentatively follows suit with a polite if grudging word of thanks.  
  
The cookies are actually quite good. Niles hadn’t realized how hungry he was until he ate one; it’s even better with the tea Flayn brings over.  
  
“Now, you two have made a long trip, so feel free to spend the night. We can figure out how you’ll get back in the morning,”  
  
“Yuri might be in trouble if Rhea comes back before then,” Niles says. “Hapi and Alois can only do so much.”  
  
Seteth furrows his brow.  
  
“You are...awfully concerned with him, are you not? Especially for a human,” he comments.  
  
Niles stares. Byleth coughs into their tea and Flayn, who had wandered over towards a rocking chair and seated herself with some sewing supplies, giggles.  
  
“I did not mean—of course, it is not terribly unusual. Flayn’s own mother was human, and Byleth’s father—” Seteth flusters, and Niles has no idea what he’s implying.  
  
Well, no. He does.  
  
“We aren’t like that,” he bites out, lowering his gaze and drinking his tea.  
  
 _You want to be like that with him_ , a stupid voice in his head says, sounding like Leo. Shut up, Leo.  
  
“Ah. My - my apologies.”  
  
A stilted silence settles then. Niles drinks his tea, not looking at anyone.  
  
“A-Anyway, Byleth, about what Rhea was going to do,” Seteth finally begins, and Niles listens even as his mind drifts elsewhere.  
  
Seteth and Byleth discuss, in low tones, Yuri’s orders to take Flayn’s blood and speculate her intent to likely inject it into Byleth, in hopes of waking some memory in them. They don’t speak clearly about it, likely because of Niles being present, but he remembers that Byleth had said Rhea wanted them to be someone else, so he supposes it relates to that.  
  
“You are awfully lost in thought,” Flayn says, startling him from his blind side. His knee knocks into the table and he mumbles an apology when Seteth and Byleth look over, surprised.  
  
“Oh, _I_ am sorry! I should have known better,” Flayn frets and he shakes his head.  
  
“It’s fine. I usually hear people coming,” Niles says. She still looks sorry.  
  
“Can I help with whatever is bothering you?” She asks. She truly does remind him of Elise—so unbelievably kind, and yet he gets the feeling there’s a sharp steel under her gentle demeanor.  
  
They would probably get along well.  
  
“Probably not,” Niles sighs. “I’m trying to remember something that happened a long time ago. Fifteen years ago, actually.”  
  
“Is that a long time?” Flayn mumbles, then shakes her head. “Well, if that is all, surely you will find your answers in time. People never truly forget things, after all, especially not _important_ things.”  
  
She sounds so confident about it.  
  
“You think so?” Niles asks doubtfully. He’s not sure if that’s how it works.  
  
“I know so,” Flayn says with surety. “Perhaps you are focusing too hard on it. Let your mind wander a bit! I will make more tea.”  
  
“Alright,” Niles agrees. “If you say so, I’ll keep trying.”  
  
“Good,” she says firmly, then wanders off to prepare more tea. He’s only half-aware when she comes back and refills his own empty cup; he thanks her, of course, but his thoughts are straying.  
  
Niles feels more than a little crazy. His train of thought unravels like a roll of Nishiki’s yarn, making a mess and become strewn everywhere; he thinks of Yuri on the bridge that first day, furious and scared at the sight of Niles; he thinks of how long he’s been away from home, of the fact he’s going to have an insane amount of paperwork to do when he goes back to work if he doesn’t get fired, the fact nobody is home to check on his succulents—  
  
He drops his head rudely onto the table with a _thud_.  
  
“I can’t fu—ughh,” he groans, cutting himself off because Flayn is in the room. “I can’t take it anymore. I’m going insane. What if Rhea’s back from wherever she’d gone already? What if Yuri is dead? We need to go back.”  
  
“Leaving before morning _is_ preferable,” Byleth agrees. Seteth looks hesitant.  
  
“I suppose I could call in the cat bus,” he finally says, and Niles doesn’t even try to process whatever the fuck that could mean. “You can’t fly, right?”  
  
The last bit is directed toward Byleth, who says, “Actually, I can. Sort of. I am...not very good at changing yet, so it just isn’t safe for me to carry anyone—”  
  
“As much as I love the cat bus, Father does not need to call them tonight,” Flayn announces grandly, snipping a loose thread from the cloth she’d been stitching away at. She stands from her rocking chair, walking toward Niles with purpose.  
  
“A gift,” she says, holding her hand out to him. “It will not chafe, so it ought to be quite comfortable even in the heat.”  
  
An eyepatch, he realizes as he takes it from her tentatively. It’s cut in a way that will obscure even most of the scarring and the black fabric is softer than anything else he’s ever felt.  
  
He runs his thumb along the pale purple stitching on the outer edge. How long had Niles been lost in thought, for Flayn to have the time to sew even the details of little petals drifting in the corner?  
  
“You’re such a cheeky kid,” he chokes out, throat tight. It isn’t lost on him the purple she used is close to, if not the same shade as Yuri’s hair.  
  
“For some reason, you are not the first to call me such,” Flayn says, sounding pleased as Niles turns away from her—from everyone, so he can put it on. He nearly knots his own hair in his rush but nobody comments. He feels his face carefully, making sure it’s fixed in place, and feels only the slightest hint of raised flesh where the soft fabric ends.  
  
“Flayn has done an impeccable job as always,” Seteth comments when he turns around, Flayn making an excited noise in her throat and clapping her hands together.  
  
“You do look very nice,” Byleth agrees at the same time.  
  
“Oh, Bernie would have done much better, but I am so glad! It suits you. Do you like it?”  
  
“I do,” Niles says honestly, smiling at her with more ease than he would usually feel. “Thank you, Flayn. I’ll take good care of it.”  
  
She opens her mouth to speak but is cut off by a rush of wind outside so powerful that the windows rattle. She grins, wide and excited.  
  
“You should answer the door,” she says to Niles, who looks to Seteth for confirmation. He looks baffled as well, but gives a nod, so Niles stands and instinctively ruffles Flayn’s hair the way he might do to Elise or Mozu as he walks by her. She squeaks.  
  
Niles isn’t sure what he expected upon opening the door. Yuri showing up is nothing but wishful longing, and yet that’s exactly who he sees—Yuri, in all of his massive bird glory, staring down at him in an almost embarrassed manner.  
  
“I would say so much shit to you right now if a kid weren’t behind me,” Niles manages to get out. Part of him wants to throw himself forward and wrap his arms around Yuri’s neck, but he doesn’t let himself do more than step forward and reach out to touch him.  
  
Yuri meets him halfway, bowing his head to nose his beak into Niles’ hair. _Sorry_ , it feels like he’s saying, and Niles won’t accept it until he says it properly.  
  
He does still lift his hand to stroke Yuri’s feathered neck, though.  
  
Byleth, Flayn and Seteth exit the cottage behind him; Niles shifts aside as Yuri stops messing with his hair in favor of bowing so lowly to Flayn that his beak nearly touches the ground.  
  
“Oh, um, oh dear—it is all okay, Yuri! No need to apologize. I gave it to you willingly, remember?” She says, flustered, and then elbows Seteth with a hissed “ _Father!_ ”  
  
Though he doesn’t look very sorry, Seteth does bow his head to Yuri.  
  
“My apologies. I got…carried away before, causing you more pain than you deserved.”  
  
Yuri snorts but doesn’t seem to be angry, instead lifting his head and scraping his talons in the dirt.  
  
“Of course. You should not linger. Byleth?” Seteth turns to them.  
  
“I can fly,” Byleth says, more to themself than any of them as they give a full-body shiver. Niles is about to ask if they’re alright when they seem to fold in on themself, scales pressing out from underneath the skin of the face and hands, robes seeming to melt into their body as wings unfurl from their shoulders and they fall on all fours.  
  
A dragon is in Byleth’s place. Not as massive as Niles would expect a dragon to be—only somewhat larger than Yuri, in fact—but a dragon nonetheless.  
  
Yuri nudges Niles’ side with his wing, staring at him.  
  
“Oh. Am I meant to fly on _you_?” Niles asks. Yuri nods. Somehow the idea doesn’t fill him with the trepidation Niles expects; instead he barely feels nervous as he hooks his arms around Yuri’s neck and climbs onto his back.  
  
“Safe travels, all of you! It was lovely to finally meet you, Byleth, and you, Zero!” Flayn calls from her father’s side. Niles can’t help the fondness he feels as he motions for her to come closer.  
  
“My name,” he says when she’s close, dropping his hand to her hair again. “Is Niles. Thanks again, kiddo.”  
  
She flushes, grinning brightly up at him.  
  
“Niles,” she repeats. “That’s a lovely name! Mine is Cethleann.”  
  
“Flayn!” Seteth gasps behind her, but Niles pinches her ear when he pulls his hand back, making Flayn squeak.  
  
“Cethleann. A lovely name for a lovely little lady—take better care of it than I did mine, alright?”  
  
“I will,” Flayn promises as Seteth tugs her back by the shoulder, Yuri’s wings beginning to shift and spread out. “Come visit again someday, Niles!”  
  
“I’ll do my best,” he calls back, unable to wave as Yuri launches them both into the air; Byleth follows suit behind them, unsteady but consistently following after them.  
  
Niles tucks his head into Yuri’s neck. His body is warm and alive; his feathers are soft under his arms.  
  
It feels so very familiar.  
  
Niles closes his eye. Even like this, Yuri smells faintly of flowers, and Niles remembers...he remembers…  
  
 _I’m so fucking stupid_ , he thinks, smiling into Yuri’s feathers. The answer has been with him for fifteen years; the sprig of soft purple flowers dried and pressed between the pages of his mother’s old journal and kept close to his bedside since he awoke with it clutched in his fist in the ambulance.  
  
“Hey, Yuri,” he murmurs. His voice is drowned out by the rush of wind as they fly but he’s certain Yuri can hear him. “Fifteen years ago I almost drowned in a river, out in Saitama. I couldn’t remember what happened very well, but a boy jumped in after me. He didn’t pull me out. We flew, didn’t we, Lilac?”  
  
Feathers rush past him. Yuri’s body seems to shed beneath his grip, feathers falling off of him in great black clouds, and yet somehow neither of them fall as Yuri twists in his grip to grab his hands.  
  
“You remembered! Niles, you _remembered!_ ” The amount of raw joy mingled with delighted disbelief in Yuri’s tone is overwhelming enough, but then Niles realizes he’s crying, the tears catching on his lashes as they glide through the air.  
  
“I’m sorry it took so long,” Niles says, squeezing Yuri’s hands in his and feeling his own eye ache warmly.  
  
Yuri smiles at him—wide, brilliant, genuine. His eyes shine brighter than ever with his joy, his tears.  
  
“It was so long ago,” Yuri says. “And I never _told_ you. I remember, though—seeing some crazy kid running through the forest, falling into the river. I couldn’t do nothing. I was normal back then, but when I thought I was going to die too because I couldn’t lift you out, suddenly I was something else. I carried you out—I was so scared, you were bleeding and burned and I wanted to get help but I couldn’t change back.”  
  
“Was it you?” Niles asks, hysterical laughter bubbling in his throat. “Did you—my eye. Hapi said it was magic.”  
  
“It was me,” Yuri agrees, laughing wetly. “I didn’t know what I was doing. I’m sorry.”  
  
“You saved my life,” Niles says. “Don’t be sorry. I thought I wanted to die that night but what I really wanted was to live. You _saved_ me.”  
  
Shit. He’s crying as well now and Niles knows he’s an ugly crier. Yuri doesn’t seem to care, letting go of one of his hands to grab his shoulder, drawing him in close and pressing their foreheads together.  
  
“And you just saved me,” Yuri says. Niles can feel the warmth of his breath, smelling like that godawful tea Alois had made him drink.  
  
Niles somehow doesn’t care.  
  
“Lilac,” he says, for no other reason than to say it. Yuri’s smile widens, face pink.  
  
“My mother named me for the flower. She always loved them, see. I was going to give those lilacs to her, but I left them with you instead.”  
  
“I still have one,” Niles admits as Yuri’s hand squeezes his shoulder, his other disentangling from Niles to reach for his face; Niles grabs for his forearm in return. “I kept it all this time—it’s pressed into my mother’s book.”  
  
“I’m glad,” Yuri says, palm pressing against Niles’ cheek, thumb brushing against the edge of his eyepatch. “Niles, I’m so glad—can I—”  
  
“Yes,” Niles says. Whether Yuri is asking to see his face or kiss him, he doesn’t know. Yuri slides his thumb under the fabric, pushing it aside, and he doesn’t look at Niles with pity or disgust.  
  
“You’re beautiful,” he says instead, his sincerity leaving Niles reeling. “I thought so when I saw you on the bridge as well—then I realized who you were and I was so _scared_ —” Yuri leans closer, pressing his warm mouth to Niles’ scarred eyelid.  
  
“You’re gonna kill me,” Niles chokes out, feeling Yuri smile against the skin. Nobody has touched him there except his doctor; Niles himself barely ever touches it unless he’s washing his face.  
  
“You’re beautiful,” Yuri says again, mouthing the words against his scars, and Niles wrenches away with a strangled sob. Yuri looks stunned, then concerned, but then he laughs as Niles clumsily shoves their mouths together.  
  
It isn’t a cruel sound. It’s full of relief as Yuri grips him tight and kisses him back.  
  
A few yards behind them, Byleth glides on unsteady wings, averting their gaze from this moment of intimacy with a heavy sigh of exasperation.  
  


* * *

  
During the journey back to the bathhouse, Yuri tells Niles what had happened after he’d awoken; Alois had forced more tea onto him and then he had sought out Rhea himself. Yuri had been sick not from Seteth’s curse—he had ingested some of Flayn’s blood and the blood of a dragon is apparently quite toxic. The curse Niles had crushed under his heel was Rhea’s; a curse to keep him in line and unable to defy her directly.  
  
With it gone he had been able to negotiate with her easily enough. Niles won’t need to push her to give up his own contract and return Leo and Odin to normal; Yuri had done it for him, ensuring that his retrieval of Byleth would be rewarded.  
  
Niles also finds out one of Yuri’s distant ancestors, likely on the side of his unknown father, was a tengu. This is why he can change; he also finds out Rhea apparently collects people like that, usually to try and inject with her own blood, trying to turn them into her dead mother.  
  
Niles had thought he couldn’t feel more disgusted by her. He was wrong; that adds a whole new layer to the onion of _fucked up_ she is.  
  
Near dawn they land a mile or so away from the bathhouse to walk the rest of the way on foot. It takes Byleth several minutes to shift back into a person; Niles has no idea who ‘Jeritza’ is, but as soon as the name left Yuri’s mouth Byleth had shed the last of their scales and their wings had folded into their back.  
  
They take their time walking back. People look at them—at Byleth—with wide-eyed wonder and fascination. Yuri, who had kept Niles’ hand clasped in his the entire flight, walks close enough that their fingers occasionally brush. Neither takes hold of the other.  
  
Rhea is waiting for them at the bathhouse. She stands outside the front entrance across the bridge, her odd white robes gleaming in the morning sun.  
  
There’s a bunch of chickens behind her. This can only bode well.  
  
When they cross the bridge, Rhea’s expression crumbles with relief at the sight of Byleth.  
  
“Thank goodness you are unhurt,” she says when Byleth approaches her, reaching her hands to touch their face. “I was so afraid when I returned to find you missing. I am so sorry for failing to keep you safe, my dear.”  
  
Niles wonders how Byleth can stomach smiling blandly at her.  
  
“Seteth would never risk harming me,” they say in that slow, detached voice Niles is beginning to realize they only really use with her. “Zero and Yuri were very kind to come and find me.”  
  
“Kind,” Rhea echoes, dropping her hands from Byleth’s face and turning to look at the two of them instead. Her gaze seems to become colder. “Yes. It was quite kind of them. I especially owe Zero, it seems.”  
  
“You know what I will ask, Lady Rhea,” Niles says, the formal title tasting awful in his mouth. He wants to spit.  
  
She smiles coolly.  
  
“I will dismiss your contract for returning Byleth to me,” she says. “But if you wish for your friends to be returned to normal, you must prove their value to you. Find them among these livestock.”  
  
 _Always a fucking twist_ , Niles thinks, biting his cheek to keep from saying something he would be unable to take back. Yuri squeezes his elbow gently, grinning up at him.  
  
“Go on,” he says. At least one of them is confident.  
  
Niles steps forward. He walks past Rhea without allowing himself to even look at her; he stands over the closed-off area in front of the bathhouse, down at the dozen chickens preening and wandering about the makeshift pen.  
  
He looks at each one carefully, brow furrowed. Finally, he turns to Rhea, who looks at him expectantly.  
  
“None of them,” Niles says and she narrows her eyes.  
  
“You’re certain?” She asks. He nods.  
  
“They aren’t here,” he says. Rhea grimaces as the chickens _pop_ behind Niles, startling him; he turns and a dozen of the other bathhouse workers grin at him, Hapi and Alois included.  
  
“I knew you’d get it,” Hapi says.  
  
“I’m so, so—I’m so _happy_ for you,” Alois practically wails, sniffling into his sleeve, and Niles is glad when Yuri tugs him back, just in case Alois tries to hug him.  
  
“You’re free to go,” Rhea sighs. She pulls Niles’ contract from her sleeve, tearing it in half in front of him. An odd feeling settles over him; a warmth he hadn’t realized was missing from him as his name well and truly becomes his and his alone once more.  
  
“Let’s go,” Yuri says, pulling him along. Hapi gives an idle wave as Niles is forced to look away. “Your friends will be waiting for you at the tunnel—come on!”  
  
Niles doesn’t say _thank you_ to Rhea. He doesn’t even look at her as he passes, though he glances at Byleth, internally wishing them the best. He hopes whatever plan they have in mind will be enacted soon; he hopes they never have to see Rhea again.  
  
As soon as they’re out of sight of the bathhouse, Yuri drops his hand from Niles’ arm to take his hand, pulling him along. Niles lets him. He selfishly never wants him to let go.  
  
They reach the place where the lake once was; instead there’s only a field of grass and wildflowers, the same as when Niles had first come here.  
  
“I can really go,” Niles says. Not asking, but just—it doesn’t quite feel real.  
  
“You can go,” Yuri agrees, squeezing his hand. “But don’t worry. We’ll see each other again. If you want, I mean.”  
  
“Of course I want that,” Niles says, trying not to smile at the note of embarrassment in Yuri’s voice. “When you and Byleth finish whatever you’re planning, come and find me.”  
  
“I will. I need to go home—my mother...oh, I’ve been gone so long. Are you still in Saitama?”  
  
“No, I live in Shibuya. I haven’t gone back there in years,” he admits. The director is still involved in the prefectures politics even if he’s no longer allowed to be involved in orphanage affairs; Niles still sees his face on television and in the paper. He would hear his name far too often if he stayed.  
  
“Shibuya,” Yuri repeats to himself. “Shibuya. Okay. I’ll come find you in Shibuya.” He says it like a promise; Niles has never put much stock in what other people promise him. He finds himself believing Yuri with everything in him regardless.  
  
“I’ll be waiting,” Niles says, and because he can’t help himself he kisses Yuri one last time. No—not for the last time, he tells himself. The last _for now_.  
  
Yuri kisses him back. His hand is still warm in Niles’ own; Niles doesn’t want to stop. He doesn’t want to let go of Yuri’s hand and he wants to keep kissing him.  
  
He can’t, though. He can’t stay in this place, so when Yuri pulls away from him with regret that Niles feels just as keenly, he tugs his hand out of Yuri’s.  
  
“I won’t say goodbye,” Yuri says. “So get going, Niles, and don’t look back. You have to promise you won’t.”  
  
“Alright,” Niles agrees. He isn’t sure why, but there are stories like that—the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, which he had found so uninteresting when Leo once spoke of it, surfaces in his memory.  
  
He takes one last, lingering look at Yuri; at his soft hair and flushed face, his uniform mishappen from the chaos of the past day.  
  
“I’ll see you again soon,” he says, reaching out to grasp Yuri’s hand loosely one more time. Yuri’s smile is small but warm.  
  
“I’ll come running,” Yuri says back, gripping his hand before letting go. Niles turns away. He steps down onto the grassy field; he walks, slow at first, and then he runs.  
  
Leo and Odin are waiting for him. Niles doesn’t look back.  
  
“Niles! There you are!” Odin hollers, waving from the mouth of the tunnel. God, Niles has missed his bellowing voice; Leo looks exhausted at Odin’s side.  
  
“Sorry. I wandered too far,” he says when he skids down the hill. “Are you alright, Leo?”  
  
“Fine,” Leo says through a yawn. “Just tired. Come on—we’ll be late at this rate.”  
  
 _We probably already are_ , Niles thinks. Like, a week late.  
  
“Hey, Odin?” He asks as they walk through the tunnel.  
  
“Hm?”  
  
“I’m driving the rest of the way.”  
  
His tone brooks no argument. Leo stifles a laugh behind a fake cough.  
  
“Huh? Why? You hate driving!”  
  
“Maybe, but I still do a better job than you—and I’ve only got one eye to work with.”  
  
Odin sputters indignantly.  
  
“He has a point,” Leo says, and Odin groans and complains but hands Niles the keys to the car as they exit the tunnel.  
  
“These trees sure shed a lot,” Odin says as they take in the sight of the car, covered in leaves. Leo sighs and wipes off the ones covering the hood of the car; Niles wonders how he can feign ignorance about the days of lost time as he clears off half of the roof.  
  
“Xander is freaking out,” Leo remarks as he climbs into the passenger seat, checking his phone. “I have like, fifty notifs—wait, they’re still loading. Camilla too...huh? The date is weird.”  
  
“Is it?” Niles asks, relieved when he’s able to start the car.  
  
Maybe he should tell them. They might just believe him with all the time they've lost.  
  
“Hey, Niles—when did you get that eyepatch? I’ve never seen you with that one before,” Odin remarks from the back. Niles fights a smile.  
  
“Well, about that…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact i love coffee and my username is glueskin
> 
> OK so i know there are some loose ends/unexplained things so if you care about details like that ill list some things here  
> \- this entire fic just takes place in a spirited away esque world where yokai (and foreign creatures as well) and spirits exist and are just vibing. some yokai are capable of being with humans by virtue of being able to change form or magic so sometimes "humans" who had yokai ancestors will end up like. showing abnormal traits that arent visible to other people, usually when something stressful happens to trigger the change or when they come into contact w an actual yokai or wander into the spirit world  
> \- alois owes jeralt a debt because before he worked in the bathhouse, he had been sealed in a pot for like. a few hundred years. jeralt let him out by accident lol  
> \- sitri was one of those "humans" who had yokai blood and awoke to it and rhea took her while she was young and kind of raised her trying to turn her into sothis and failing...she would sneak out into the human world sometimes and alois would cover for her and one time she met jeralt and he was like omg that guy saved me once! so she became interested in him. you know what the hell happened then... Baby Time  
> \- sitri did die during childbirth again. when byleth was a teenager they wandered into the spirit world by mistake, caused a ruckus by being themself, then left again and rhea heard about them and what they looked like and was like umm.... (kidnaps them from the human world)  
> \- byleth was not a fan of this even if theyve been like, pliant and passive as far as rhea is aware HFSDKHFHSD she sees what she wants to see. byleth and yuri (+hapi and constance and balthus) have been plotting to seal rhea for a few years now  
> \- flayn hangs out w this human girl in the human world (bernie) and seteth goes crazy every time he comes home and shes missing again  
> \- unseen: edelgard descended from one of the humans w youkai blood who rhea had experimented on; her other parent also had a yokai ancestor and it kind of awoke some Shit in her so shes been going insane trying to figure out why shes a scalie  
> \- yuri mentions jeritza to byleth because byleth once mentioned him as one of the people they want to go back to and yuri was like Lmfao. gay  
> \- yuris mom is still alive and waiting for him. they do have a tearful reunion and he tells her everything and she believes him  
> \- he finds niles in shibuya and they go on a cool date and develop a real rs and yuri accidentally outs flannel and nishiki as being not human. yuri brings niles to saitama to meet his mom and yuris mom loves him  
> \- nishiki is a kitsune and flannel is a werewolf or something. theyve been living in the human world for years. a lot of kitsune and werewolves (and tanuki) do this because its easy to disguise themselves  
> \- niles does tell odin and leo why they lost like a week of time and they think hes joking at first but also niles is 100% serious and they realize this and are like um wow... Fucking crazy ? and when yuri shows up a few months later theyre like oh my god why didnt you mention THE PART WHERE YOU CAUGHT FEELINGS FOR SOMEONE!! odin is especially vexed  
> \- niles didnt lose his job thank god <3 he works as a financial analyst for some fucking company i dont know  
> \- none of these details matter in the end because i literally wrote this whole fic JUST for the lines "i dont remember my name but i remember yours" and "ill come running" and also yuri kissing niles' eyelid while they fly and byleth 20 ft behind them had to be like I am looking away...

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact i love coffee my username is glueskin


End file.
